January 24, 2013 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Herrera seeks re-election

Vaid seeks to broaden movement

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Vol. 43 • No. 04 • January 24-30, 2013

O’Connor Gay rights get a presidential shout-out settles in at EQCA P by Lisa Keen

by Seth Hemmelgarn

he new executive director of Equality California has indicated health care reform would be a main focus of the statewide LGBT lobbying group’s efforts this year. John O’Connor, 41, who joined EQCA in December, has spoken of shifting the nonprofit’s activities, and offered more insight recently when he met with the Bay Area ReCynthia Laird porter. John O’Connor One law that will influence the group’s work is the Affordable Care Act, the national legislation designed to expand health care coverage. “LGBT people, while there is this myth of affluence, have socioeconomic disadvantages and disproportionately suffer from a lack of access to health care,” and the act “is a huge opportunity to bring people into the fold of health coverage,” O’Connor said when he met with the B.A.R. January 10. He said his organization is assembling a campaign to help educate people about the reform. EQCA’s looking for partners among black, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Latino people “so we reach all of the LGBT community,” he said. He added transgender people are another “very vital” component. “The needs of the transgender community is specialized,” O’Connor said. “It is different from other LGBT people we will be reaching out to.” As part of the national reforms, individuals and small businesses will be able to buy affordable health benefit plans through a competitive insurance marketplace. Open enrollment begins October 1, according to http://www.healthcare.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “We are having an internal planning process right now to figure out what is our capacity and what could it be and how do we ramp up between now and June perhaps,” O’Connor said. That would allow them to reach people at events like LGBT Pride festivals that take place that month.

Legislation

O’Connor hasn’t shared many details on state legislation EQCA plans to support in 2013, but said announcements would be made in the end of January and early February. Over the years, the organization has successfully backed bills that promote everything from housing rights to school safety. O’Connor recently indicated the agency would focus on helping to ensure that state laws are adequately implemented. In an email earlier this month, EQCA spokesman Steve Roth said the group “is particularly interested in ensuring the full implementation of all legislation related to safe schools, which will be achieved in part through the efforts of the Safe Schools AuSee page 9 >>

resident Barack Obama, in his second inaugural address, emphasized the nation’s principle of equality for all and, in doing so, specifically included the struggles of LGBT Americans, a first for a U.S. president in such a speech. “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth,” the president said as he stood on the Capitol’s west side, looking out over a crowd of several hundred thousand. “It is now our generation’s task to carry on what [our nation’s] pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely

With first lady Michelle Obama holding the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s and the Lincoln Bibles, President Barack Obama recited the oath of office during Monday’s inaugural ceremony. Reuters

the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” said Obama. This generation’s task, he said, is to “make these words, these rights, these values – of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

– real for every American.” LGBT groups issued statements praising the president for including the gay civil rights See page 9 >>

Planners detail Castro Street changes by Matthew S. Bajko

etails emerged this week on how pedestrians would gain more breathing room along Castro Street between 19th and Market streets. The sidewalks in the middle of the 400 and 500 blocks on both sides of Castro Street would be widened roughly 10 feet for about 300 feet. Additional trees, lighting, and outdoor seating could be installed in those areas. There would be one lane of traffic for both directions, and left-hand turn lanes would be maintained at 18th Street. More curb space would be added for those waiting to board Muni buses at the Market and 18th Street intersections. Yet there would be enough room for cars to pass the transit vehicles so traffic would not come to a standstill. “We are highlighting the areas where we think the widened sidewalk areas can occur,” said Nick Perry, an urban designer with the Planning Department’s City Design Group. Planners presented their initial design to Castro residents and merchants at a community meeting Wednesday night. In an interview late Tuesday with the Bay Area Reporter to preview the proposal, Perry laid out several elements planners are seeking input on in particular. One idea calls for mini parklets – two each on both blocks of Castro Street but on opposite sides of the street – to be carved out of two parking spaces. The parklet now in front of the Dancing Pig restaurant on the 500 block is slated to be removed. “That will be one thing we are asking the community tomorrow if there is interest in doing mini plazas,” said Perry. Planners would try to make up for the lost parking somewhere else in the neighborhood. Perry pointed to the proposal to replace the gas station at the corner of Market, Castro and 17th streets with a mixed-use residential building as one possibility. Several of the gas station’s existing curb cutouts could be turned into parking spaces. “We are trying really hard not to lose any parking spaces because we know the business

Courtesy SF Planning Dept.

A drawing shows the typical existing and proposed configuration of Castro Street in the middle of the block.

community wants to keep those preserved,” said Perry. As the B.A.R. first reported in December, city officials have designated $4 million for the project. Planners are now trying to determine how to allocate that funding by seeking feedback on what design elements the public most desires. “As one of the busiest streets in the city, Castro Street will be redesigned to accommodate pedestrians and all modes of transportation,” stated Planning Director John Rahaim, a gay man who lives in the Castro, last week in officially announcing the project. Proposed plans shown to the B.A.R. show extra details added to the crosswalks at the three intersections in the project area. Perry said the city is looking at using special paving

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treatments for the crosswalks. “Nothing has been determined yet, and we’ll be asking the community whether it’s an element they’d like prioritized in the budget,” he said. Another change planners are reviewing is redrawing the crosswalk from Jane Warner Plaza across Market Street toward the Pottery Barn building. It could be moved south in front of the plaza boundary flush with the entrance to the Twin Peaks bar. “We would make the crosswalk in line with Castro Street. As it is now, cars turning right onto Market from Castro cannot see pedestrians crossing,” said Perry. “We want to make the intersection smaller and hopefully make pedestrians more visible. We are not sure it See page 7 >>

<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

LGBT millennials start to think about aging by Peter Hernandez

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om Temprano believes in an anti-ageist LGBT community that recognizes the needs of the elderly, but it wasn’t until he broke a tiny bone in his foot during a heated basketball game that he experienced first-hand the limitations that come with age. The gay 26-year-old found himself debilitated for nearly four months and fostered the same sort of community among friends, partners, and resources that the elderly experience. For the growing population of younger, millennial LGBT individuals largely self-employed and without jobs with 401k packages, the future often seems hazy – that is, if it’s even considered. “My injury got me more concerned as I see those around me aging and I want to make sure everyone has access to health care,” said Temprano, who last week was elected president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. He estimates his 401k from a previous job at a nonprofit entrepreneurial center at $800, and it hasn’t increased due to his self-employment as a promoter and marketing consultant. Among those under 30 who were interviewed, uncertainty loomed when asked, “What will you do when you retire?” or, “Who will decide your end of life care?” Even greater, simpler, and more personal was the question, “Do you want to have kids?” “I’m interested in my education so I can get a career so I can have a family. I don’t know which one will come first though. By the time I’m in my mid-30s though, definitely,” said Darren Girard, 25, a transgender man and recent graduate of City College of San Francisco. Among young LGBT people, preparation for aging – whether it’s financial or more personal – doesn’t seem necessary until it happens. “Personally, I’m single, but if I had a partner I’d make those wills and put money aside to prepare for those taxes if they were the same way in the future,” said Girard from his new home in Santa Ana, California. And too often, the pace of life overshadows consideration for long-term planning when many LGBT millennials find themselves in a stale job economy mounted with student debt.

Rick Gerharter

Tom Temprano, who was injured playing basketball, navigates the hallway of his apartment on crutches.

Angela Perone is a 31-year-old attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which was the first LGBT legal organization to start a permanent Elder Law Project to identify and assist the needs of an aging generation of baby boomers. She works with aging issues and said it highlights gaps in policy work, including the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents federal recognition of same-sex relationships for tax and other purposes. A queer woman, Perone has been with her same-sex partner for six years, and she’d like to have children. But in the course of this maturation, she has recognized the complications that arise from aging as a lesbian. “My partner and I have honest discussions and think about issues and steps to create documents in spite of legal barriers. We talk to other family members and friends. Do we want to be buried or cremated? Who do you not want there?” Perone said. The policies that exist on a federal level, like Social Security benefits and estate tax and planning benefits, often leave same-sex couples who are near the end of their lives in exacerbated tragedies because of DOMA. Jim Casey, president and CEO of Integrated Wealth Management, has slides that he uses to talk about how same-sex couples can plan their finances and assets. His comment for

LGBT couples bleakly reflects the federal government’s standpoint. “In the eyes of the federal government, you’re strangers,” Casey said. To avoid unexpected taxation upon a partner’s death, LGBT millennials should keep their finances and property separate and to start saving now to offset the taxation on same-sex couples, Casey said. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a DOMA case in March. It involves Edie Windsor, 83, who married Thea Spyer, her partner of 44 years in Canada in 2007. Spyer died two years later. The federal government refused to recognize their marriage and taxed Windsor’s inheritance from Spyer as though they were strangers. Under federal law, a spouse who dies can leave her assets, including the family home, to the other spouse without incurring estate taxes. Casey warned that LGBT millennials shouldn’t settle into lofty expectations of equality by the time they are elderly too. “The only thing we can do is to make sure assets are handled by someone adept in the nuances of finances for same-sex couples,” Casey said. Among even younger millennials – those who are coming out of high school or in their early 20s, the question, “How are you preparing for old age?” holds the same uncertainty as, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” Noah Miller, 34, executive director of outLoud Radio, works with student interns between the ages of 14 and 24 who produce short podcasts ranging from subjects like coming out to intergenerational storytelling. “When I was growing up, you wore green on Thursday, that meant you were gay,” Patty Woods, 58, said about growing up in New York during an interview with 20-year-old Cedar Lay. OutLoud’s Intergenerational Storytelling Project in collaboration with Openhouse, a housing, services and community organization for LGBT seniors, forges a connection between youth and elders and opens dialogue and reflection on aging. “It’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone 70 years older than you. But by the end, the students feel excited,” Miller said. He said that through this project, groundwork is being laid for LGBT youth to consider what life would be like in their old age. It also uplifts LGBT seniors who may feel isolated or alienated as they grow older while providing LGBT youth with role models that they may have lacked while coming out. “Very few have chances to forge this kind of relationship,” Miller said.t

Gov. addresses health care expansion by Seth Hemmelgarn

n the budget he recently proposed for the coming fiscal year, California Governor Jerry Brown addresses expanding coverage for low-income people, but it’s not clear how officials will do that. Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid health care program for low-income families, currently serves one out of every five Californians, including many people who are living with HIV and AIDS. The program receives 20 percent of the state’s general fund, and that figure will increase as the state implements its commitment to federal health care reform under the Affordable Care Act. In his proposed budget, the gov-

ernor offers two options for expanding Medi-Cal, Courtney Mulhern-Pearson, director of state and local affairs for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, pointed out in an interview with SFAF’s Bulletin for Experimental Treatment for AIDS newsletter. One option “would build on the existing state-administered program and managed-care delivery system,” Mulhern-Pearson said. The other would build on counties’ lowincome health programs. Anne Donnelly, director of health care policy for Project Inform, told the Bay Area Reporter that advocates feel that they understand the state-based option “pretty well,” but they have less understanding of the county-based route. One concern is

what systems would be used to deliver benefits. “You want to get as much consistency as you can so people aren’t completely confused,” Donnelly said. Another area of interest for people living with HIV and AIDS is the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. That program, often referred to as ADAP, provides people who are uninsured or under-insured and living with HIV and AIDS access to medication. Last January, the program began moving eligible clients to the counties’ low-income health programs. Expenditures are projected to decrease, primarily due to people moving to those programs. See page 7 >>

Election 2013>>

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

SF city attorney launches 2013 re-election bid by Matthew S. Bajko

ity Attorney Dennis Herrera, best known for his office’s legal push for same-sex marriage, has begun to lay the groundwork for his re-election campaign in November. Last week Herrera quietly pulled papers to seek a fourth term as the city’s chief legal defender. When he was first elected for the post in a runoff in 2001, Herrera became the first Latino to serve as San Francisco’s city attorney. Four years later, and again in 2009, Herrera found himself running for re-election unopposed. As of now he is the only person to declare his candidacy for city attorney. When he signed the necessary paperwork Thursday, January 17 at the city’s elections department, Herrera became the first person to pull papers to run for local office on the November ballot. Herrera invited a reporter and photographer from the Bay Area Reporter to join him last week at the elections office. Afterward over a cup of tea – he gave up coffee when he turned 50 in November – Herrera sat down for an interview. As for why he wants to remain city attorney, Herrera said, “If you are a lawyer that has an interest in public issues and understands the power of the law to impact people’s lives, the city attorney is uniquely positioned to do that. You can make a positive impact for the citizens that you serve, and that is incredibly rewarding.” Due to an election schedule change voters approved last November, Herrera is running for a truncated two-year term this fall, as will gay city Treasurer Jose Cisneros. In November Cisneros told the B.A.R. he planned to seek re-election, but as of Wednesday, he had yet to file his paperwork with election officials. The two offices will then be back up for grabs in 2015, when they will be on the same ballot as races for mayor, district attorney, and sheriff. The move, pushed by gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, is meant to save the city money on election costs. Herrera told Wiener, who worked for him as a deputy city attorney, that he was supportive of the measure, Proposition D, when he first floated the idea by him last year. “Running for the seat again in two years is a little daunting. But it was the right thing to do when you look at voter turnout in this race from four years ago,” said Herrera. Asked if he planned to serve out the full two-year term, Herrera said that “as we sit here today absolutely,” adding that he is “lucky to lead a nationally recognized law office. I am lucky to have a great position.” He ruled out running for state Assembly in 2014 when gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) is termed out of office. Herrera lives in Ammiano’s 17th Assembly District in the Dogpatch neighborhood with his wife, Anne, and son, Declan. “I have no interest in the Assembly seat,” he said. “When you are an elected official you look at what are you good at, and I am good at being a lawyer. I am sure there are a lot of great candidates who want to run for Assembly who are great legislators and I wish them the best.” He also ruled out running for mayor again in 2015. Herrera sought Room 200 at City Hall in 2011 but came in third. “I have no plans to run for mayor,” he said. He was less committal on if he would seek another four-year term as city attorney come 2015. “I am just focused on thinking about this election,” he said. It remains to be seen if anyone

Jane Philomen Cleland

City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed his re-election paperwork last week with the Department of Elections.

will oppose him this fall. He is likely to have the support of both of the city’s LGBT Democratic clubs. “I am fairly certain that we’ll endorse Herrera’s re-election as he was one of our mayoral endorsees. I mean, you never know who will hop into the race but he has been a supporter of the club in the past,” said Harvey Milk club President Tom Temprano, who expects the group to make its endorsements in September. “I haven’t heard anyone discussing it, personally. Defeating him given his popularity citywide, especially after the mayor’s race, would be a hell of an uphill battle.” Alice B. Toklas endorsed Herrera as its top pick for mayor in 2011. Co-chair Martha Knutzen also has not heard of anyone planning to oppose Herrera. “We will probably endorse in July but have not set our calendar yet,” Knutzen told the B.A.R. Herrera could find his race overshadowed by a campaign to rename SFO as Harvey Milk San Francisco International Airport. Gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos is trying to place the idea on the November ballot, though as the B.A.R. noted in a story last week, he is short one vote of the six needed from supervisors to place the charter amendment before voters. Due to guidelines that prevent him from taking a position on local ballot measures, Herrera is in the lucky position of not having to weigh in on the controversial proposal. All he would say when asked about it is that he expects it will provoke “robust discussion.” “Certainly, there are a lot of people worthy of having SFO named after them, and Harvey Milk is certainly one of them,” said Herrera. He has not yet hired a campaign manager but has lined up endorsements for his re-election from nearly all of the city’s elected officials. The four-person legislative delegation in Sacramento, both the district attorney and public defender, and 10 of the supervisors have already endorsed him, Herrera said. As of last Thursday he had yet to ask newly elected District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee for his endorsement, nor had he spoken to Mayor Ed Lee about endorsing his re-election bid, said Herrera. A mayoral aide told the B.A.R. that Lee has made no decisions on endorsements for the November races adding that he “rarely endorses” for local elected offices. As for any bad blood between the two former mayoral rivals, Herrera said that he believes they have a good working relationship. “I pledged when I lost the mayor’s race to go back to being the best city attorney I can be representing the mayor and members of the Board of Supervisors. I am confident whatever occurred in the last campaign is in the past,” said Herrera, who found his record on same-sex marriage questioned by unnamed

sources in a front-page San Francisco Chronicle article weeks prior to the 2011 election.

Taking action for marriage equality

Since 2004 Herrera and his staff have pursued litigation to overturn anti-gay marriage laws, first at the state level and then federally. His office is a party to the lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8, the voterapproved constitutional amendment defining marriage in California as between a man and a woman. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case, known as Hollingsworth v. Perry, Tuesday, March 26. Herrera and Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart plan to travel to Washington, D.C. to attend the hearing, though neither will be arguing before the nation’s highest court. Theodore Olson will handle answering the justice’s questions that day. He and his co-counsel, David Boies, filed the lawsuit on behalf of two same-sex couples seeking the

right to marry. The backers behind Prop 8 are appealing lower court rulings that found the law to be unconstitutional. City attorney staffers traveled to D.C. last week to take part in strategy sessions on the case with Olson and Boies. “I am very excited to be providing our input and have that ability to be full participants in this case,” said Herrera, who was seated at counsel’s table once before for a Supreme Court hearing in a partial-birth abortion case the city was a party to. He will be paying attention to all of the justices that day, as Herrera said it would be “a mistake” to ignore any of the nine members on the court. He pointed to how Chief Justice John Roberts surprised many pundits who assumed he would vote

against the federal health care law but ended up writing the majority opinion upholding it. “You have to be prepared to make your case to all the justices,” said Herrera. The court has until June to issue its ruling. No matter the decision, it is sure to bring media attention to Herrera just as he enters the summer months and begins to ramp up his campaign activities. Without divulging specifics, Herrera mentioned other areas he plans to focus on this year that will also keep him before the cameras. His office is planning to file lawsuits involving guns, privacy issues and health care that will take “very creative” legal approaches, promised Herrera. “I plan to be very active this year,” he said.t

<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

Volume 43, Number 04 January 24-30, 2013 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • David Duran Raymond Flournoy • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell John F. Karr • Matthew Kennedy David Lamble • Michael McDonagh David-Elijah Nahmod • Elliot Owen Paul Parish • Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood

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LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad

Flight of fancy

he proposal to rename San Francisco International Airport after Harvey Milk, the gay city supervisor who was tragically assassinated in 1978, is an unwise move that could divide the city, turn our friends against us, and zap resources that might be needed for other battles. It is a flight of fancy by one supervisor who seems to be putting his political career ahead of the best interest of the LGBT community – and the city. The Board of Supervisors should immediately reject this bad idea so that it does not go on the ballot. We want to be clear that this isn’t entirely against Supervisor David Campos, the proponent of the name change who is a gay man and has ably represented the city’s Mission district. He was just re-elected in November with no opposition. Campos is a leader in the city’s LGBT and Latino communities and is a solid voice on the board for HIV/AIDS funding, the city’s homeless, and undocumented residents. But Campos has played his hand badly in this case and, we fear, seriously underestimated the cost and details of renaming SFO. The airport is a global travel hub and millions of passengers pass through its gates annually. Like the Golden Gate Bridge, it is an icon that shouldn’t be named after anybody. Past plans to rename the airport after former Mayor Joe Alioto and the late Congressman Tom Lantos went nowhere. Renaming SFO is a big deal. Campos dropped his idea on a mostly unsuspecting public last week, leaving many stunned as they picked up the morning paper or tuned in to the local news. Within minutes, social media sites and gay blogs were buzzing. The news quickly went national. But gays and others who had concerns quickly tempered the initial excitement. Campos’s mistake was not testing the idea among opinion leaders, both gay and straight, to gauge their support or lack thereof. Then he should have met with local editorial boards to explain his proposal. As it was, the San Francisco Chronicle landed with a thud the next day with an editorial slamming the proposal. And here we are, also expressing our opposition. Campos did nothing to vet the idea by floating a trial balloon. He had no polling data. As a member of a legislative body for more than four years, he should know better. A ballot measure to rename the airport would be divisive. It would become a referendum on the LGBT community and pit our friends against us. Why would we want that when San Francisco has been – and continues to be – so supportive of LGBTs? And it wouldn’t be because people are anti-gay. Something as big as renaming SFO is very attractive to many constituencies. There

are San Francisco leaders who have, unlike Milk, done a lot for the airport and have their own politically connected supporters. SFO is considered a gateway to the Pacific; there are folks in the Asian community who would dearly like the honor for one of their leaders. And on it goes. A ballot measure to rename the airport would be expensive. It would drain financial resources out of the community when there are still urgent needs such as treatment and prevention for HIV/AIDS and affordable housing for queer youth and our elders. There is the possibility that in California, the LGBT community might need to mount a campaign in 2014 to secure marriage equality if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8 later this year or rules in such a way that same-sex marriage remains illegal. If such a ballot fight needs to be waged, we will need the support of our allies to ensure San Francisco voters turn out in large numbers to support marriage equality. The reality is that Milk has become bigger in death than in life. President Barack Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted him into the California Hall of Fame. A state holiday is named after him. Milk was the subject of an Academy Award-winning film starring Sean Penn in the title role. In San Francisco Milk’s name graces a public library, an elemen-

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tary school, a public plaza, a recreation center, a Muni streetcar, and a job training center. There is a move under way to name a navy vessel after Milk, which makes a lot more sense since he once served in the Navy. (Interestingly, Campos removed his name as a co-sponsor of that resolution when it was before the Board of Supervisors last year, although he ultimately voted for it.) Milk is the first and only supervisor to have a bust in City Hall. In short, Milk’s flame burns brightly in our history and collective memory. Supervisor Campos may have hit upon the idea of renaming SFO after Milk to burnish his credentials in the LGBT community ahead of running for state Assembly. But there are plenty of LGBTs who think his airport maneuver is a terrible idea and gay political leaders should not be put in the position of having to support this plan just because Milk is a gay icon. In fact, they should exhibit their independence and look at the political landscape. When you have allies in the progressive community like former Supervisor Angela Alioto saying she would prefer that the airport be named after her father, the late mayor, even when such a proposal was floated previously, you know it’s going to be an uphill fight, and one that is not worth the political, financial, and other intangible costs. Campos is not doing himself any favors by trying to get his proposal off the ground. Those supervisors who have co-sponsored the plan should pull their support so that renaming SFO after Milk, or anybody else, does not appear on the ballot. t

San Francisco International Airport

Open relationships by Ramon Martinez

Bay Area Reporter

ome of the most meaningful and satisfying clinical work I’ve done has been helping gay couples build and maintain intimacy, increase authenticity, co-define their relational values, and celebrate their relationship with pride and intention. Some of the couples I worked with just happened to be in open relationships. My own current relationship has transformed from being monogamous after our first six and a half years together to being open for the past two years. This is my first open relationship, and it happens to be the most satisfying, intimate relationship I’ve ever had. “Open relationship” is a general term that encompasses many relationship structures that aren’t monogamous, where boundaries are agreed upon and honesty about sexual behavior is preferred, and most always practiced. Open relationships don’t typically involve issues of infidelity or sexual deceit because partners have already agreed on their sexual boundaries. Many myths persist about open relationships (which have been practiced for centuries), including that open relationships aren’t satisfying, lack true intimacy, and are simply promiscuity, and that although love may exist, partners must not be “in love” with each other. None of these myths are true based solely on the designation and practice of open relationships; certainly no more so than they are for monogamous relationships.

Courtesy SFAF

Ramon Martinez, PsyD

Recent estimates from the gay couples study show approximately equal numbers of gay couples in the San Francisco Bay Area have open and closed relationships. This statistic appears to affirm the experience of many gay men who live, work, or play in the Castro – it seems like an even mix of couples I know tend to go one way or the other. The reasons why gay couples decide to open their relationships are as varied as the colors of the rainbow on the pride flag. Some guys have the capacity to love and be intimate with

more than one person at the same time. Some couples do it to spice up their sex life because they enjoy sharing pleasure with other guys, couples, or groups. Others choose open relationships as an expression of their rejection of heterocentric biases, which gay men have historically experienced as repressive. The “rules” of gay male relationships – or agreements, as I prefer to think of them – are equally varied. Some couples only play together, others only play separately, and some mix it up. Some couples love to share details with each other about their solo hookups, while others prefer not to talk about it. Some couples have regular fuck buddies, while others prefer to connect with someone new for each encounter. Some couples have condomless sex within the confines and established safety of the primary relationship, and agree to engage only in safer sex outside of the relationship. In other words, there isn’t just one way to conduct an open relationship. What might work for one couple may not work for another. There are common themes regarding all open relationships that are worth exploring, which may positively impact physical and mental health at both the relationship and the larger community level. These issues will be discussed in depth at the next Real Talk forum, hosted by San Francisco AIDS Foundation, on the evening of January 30 at the LGBT Community Center. At the core of any successful open relationship is communication. Maintaining open dialogue is essential. As relationships mature, needs and deSee page 9 >>

Letters >>

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

Supports Milk SFO

I support renaming SFO as Harvey Milk San Francisco International Airport and I’ll explain why. First of all, indeed Milk was, is, and always will be gay number one who became a nationally recognized leader for LGBT rights not only in America but everywhere in the world. Second, if Martin Luther King Jr. had “a dream” of equality for every human being despite their race, Milk had hope for all LGBT people in the world to have equal rights despite their sexuality. What about George Moscone? The San Francisco Convention Center bears his name. What about the rest of the city’s political leaders and other gays? They are going after Milk’s heritage, which cannot be less than theirs today, tomorrow, forever.

BarrySchneider_Redesign

Gay bars in SF

After reading the January 10 article about my friend, Jon Zuckman [“Former DJ ‘bugged’ by landlord”] I have a few pertinent facts to offer up. Zuckman has rheumatoid arthritis, which makes it physically impossible for him to move his collection of records, let alone pieces of furniture. Throw his diagnosis of PTSD into the mix, sprinkle in the relentless homophobic taunts of a landlord and we sit down to an old fashioned meal of mean-spirited bullying. Is it possible that Zuckman’s landlord successfully coerced him into removing the contents of his apartment – under the ruse of needing it empty to spray for bed bugs – to facilitate a smoother eviction in the coming months? As a former San Franciscan, I’ve read with amusement about the “rights” of naked men to walk around the Castro, but what about the rights of an elder who’s on the verge of being thrown, albeit fully-clothed, onto the mean streets of San Francisco? Where are the LGBT organizations to help my friend? Where are the Department of Public Health’s social workers and building inspectors? Where are the seasoned lawyers to help a man who survives on less that 1k a month? Where are the tenants rights groups?

In skimming over the article “Gay bars struggling, panel says” [January 17] I read much about the grim picture of San Francisco’s gay community, and I learned a lot. I’m not going to beat around the bush, but the forum would have been much more effective had there been representatives of San Francisco’s landlord association and representatives of the remaining employers in our quaint city. Speaking for myself: After graduating from the paralegal studies program at City College of San Francisco I immediately lost a HOPWA housing subsidy, increasing my rent. I hate to break it to you, but success doesn’t happen overnight, and, thus, I have been struggling to survive for almost a year now, sending out a job application here and there, but unable to focus on finding employment, trying to manage my income wisely. I can’t be the only one who commits almost his entire income to his landlord, and while qualified to hold down a “professional job” doesn’t have the required connections to once again pull his own weight. Remember it’s the members of the community that make life in the community happening, but if they are being shortchanged (as we have been for quite some time now), as a direct consequence those businesses that cater to the members of the community (who fork over a large chunk of their income to the landlord, or face homelessness) ultimately will end up shortchanged themselves. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what has been happening in San Francisco over the past five years. The concessions need to be made by the power mongers: On one side by the greedy landlords, and on the other side by the far and few remaining employers of our quaint city. Personally, I feel that employers should be encouraged to hire long term survivors of HIV disease who picked themselves up and endured professional rehabilitation, to make themselves more marketable in an employment market that is about to disappear entirely and sooner, rather than later, because we ain’t getting any younger, and probably wouldn’t last on a bar stool without back support, anyway.

Jake Epstine Hollywood, California

Heinz Voss San Francisco

Georgy Prodorov San Francisco

Tenant needs help

ALRP set to turn 30 compiled by Cynthia Laird

he AIDS Legal Referral Panel will commemorate its 30th anniversary this year and the agency will soon kick off a yearlong fundraising effort to raise $300,000 to meet growing client needs. ALRP, which depends on staff lawyers and the volunteer services of about 700 panel attorneys, helps people living with HIV/AIDS maintain and improve their health by resolving their legal issues. It provides free and low-cost legal services and education in areas such as housing, employment, insurance, confidentiality, family law, immigration, credit, government benefits, and public accommodations. It is the only such organization in the sevencounty Bay Area, officials said. The theme of the agency’s campaign is “ALRP: 30 Years of Justice from the Heart.” “ALRP is truly a collaborative effort, with our board, volunteer panel attorneys, donors, event volunteers, and staff of 11 all working together to meet the growing need for our legal services – a need that increased by 50 percent over the last eight years,” Executive Director Bill Hirsh said in a statement. ALRP has an operating budget for this year of just over $1 million. To launch the effort, ALRP will host a reception Tuesday, January 29 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street. Admission is free, but there will be opportunities to support the agency by purchasing ALRP Private Reserve wines, samples of which will be available, or gold bracelets through its partnership with Until There’s A Cure Foundation.

Courtesy ALRP

ALRP Executive Director Bill Hirsh

Hirsh said the agency hopes to raise the $300,000 from foundations, corporations, and individual donors. The campaign is intended to stimulate a higher, sustainable level of donor giving, and aims to ensure ALRP’s long-term financial stability. It has already secured pledges of more than $75,000. In the fiscal year ending December 31, 2012, nearly 80 percent of ALRP’s revenue went directly to support its program services (over 90 percent when donated legal services from panel attorneys are included). Last year the agency handled more than 2,000 legal matters for almost 1,500 PWAs. For more information, visit www. alrp.org.

Chance to win a year with personal trainer

Diakadi Fitness Performance Live in San Francisco’s South of Market district is holding its fourth annual Commit to Fit scholarship program

and there is still time to enter the contest, which ends January 31. The obesity scholarship allows one winner to get a year of one-on-one personal training ($15,000 value) and a year of nutritional coaching from Eating Free ($10,000 value). Owners Mike Clausen and his husband Billy Polson, both certified personal trainers, pointed out that so far, all of the contest winners have been gay San Franciscans, although anyone can enter the contest. Last year’s winner, Karl Mason, lost 63 pounds. To enter, fill out an application (www.diakadibody.com) and submit a three-minute video of yourself explaining why you think you’re a deserving Commit to Fit contender. Explain how a total body makeover would change your life. “Be open. Be honest. But most importantly, be ready to Commit to Fit,” the webpage notes.

Scholarship honors former Milk club president

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has announced the establishment of a Michael Goldstein Memorial Scholarship for students at City College of San Francisco. Goldstein was a progressive member of the LGBT community, working for labor, women, seniors, the disabled, and people of color. He was an elected member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and served as a president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. He died December 2, 2011 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and AIDS at the age of 58. “Michael was a dear, kind, loyal, and scrappy friend,” Ammiano said in a statement. “His work on behalf of historically marginalized and underrepresented communities meant a lot to so many people in San FranSee page 9 >>

Barry Schneider, Esq. Experienced Attorney For All Personal Matters

Wills and Probate Certified Family Law Specialist and Conservatorships Domestic Partner and Trust Issues 400 Montgomery St., Suite 505 • San Francisco, CA 94104 415.781.6500 • BSLaw55@gmail.com

Barry Schneider, Esq. Experienced Attorney For All Personal Matters

Wills and Probate Certified Family Law Specialist and Conservatorships Domestic Partner and Trust Issues 400 Montgomery St., Suite 505 • San Francisco, CA 94104 415.781.6500 • BSLaw55@gmail.com

ebar.com

<< National News

6 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

Gay rights more than just marriage, Vaid says by Chuck Colbert

f the LGBT movement is, at its core, a progressive struggle for justice and equality, then should not the gayrights’ agenda include issues of economy, race, class, and gender? In other words, is there more to gay rights and liberation than simply securing passage of non-discrimination laws and gaining the right to marry? Longtime activist and LGBT community leader Urvashi Vaid certainly thinks so. For years now, she has been urging mainstream movement leaders to take up a broader economic rights and racial justice program. In her 1996 book, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation, Vaid argued a larger vision for the movement, with social justice as a window into the future. And now in a new book, Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class, and the Assumptions of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Politics (Perseus Distribution Services), Vaid offers pointed criticism of the movement’s shortcomings on that score. “We need a movement that is conscious of [certain] economic realities that real people are facing,” Vaid said recently during a wide-ranging, hourlong telephone interview. “And our movement must address and change the serious lack of representation of people of color in its leadership, and racial justice priorities in its agenda.” Vaid was referring to a decade’s worth of economic demographics, data from the UCLA Williams Institute and other think thanks, which show many LGBT people are seniors, on Medicaid, and unemployed at the same time others are struggling to support themselves and families on fixed incomes. Vaid, 54, spoke from her New York City office at Columbia Law School where she currently serves as direc-

tor of the Engaging Tradition Project, based at the school’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. Her concern is that “we are not just a movement of young, wage-earning, and middle-class” people, she said, quickly adding, “which many of us are and that is a good thing.” However, “it’s not the full picture of the community,” said Vaid. What the Williams Institute’s data and similar findings from studies and research by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, among others, “help us to see” is “the parts of the community that are less visible,” she explained. Accordingly, “this makes a demand on the political side of our movement that perhaps we need to take a look at issues we haven’t looked at before,” Vaid said, citing recent congressional negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff as “state budgets are cutting out funding for social services at a time when communities, like our community, need homeless centers, community centers, and health-care programs – whatever.” “I am making the argument that those issues [of inequality and disparity] need to rise to prominence and that we can’t just think that passing a non-discrimination law and winning marriage is the end of the process,” she said, adding, “LGBT people are dealing with unemployment, struggling with health crises – from HIV to cancer and much more – are dealing with sexual prejudice that is built into every institution we encounter. Broadening the agenda is imperative for the movement to make meaningful change in the lived experience of LGBT people.” Vaid wrote Irresistible Revolution, which is a collection of essays on the politics of the movement, in hopes that her “voice” will “influence activists and others interested in social

Jurek Wajdowicz

Author and community leader Urvashi Vaid discusses the state of the LGBT community in her new book.

justice” whether or not they like the book, she said. “I hope that the book can make it possible for people to start thinking about our work and our agenda in different ways,” Vaid said. “None of the issues that I raise in Irresistible Revolution about race or class are new,” Vaid said in response to the question: Have we made any progress in the movement toward a broader gay-rights agenda? Vaid is no outsider to LGBT advocacy. From leadership positions at the National Gay and Lesbian Task force in the 1980s and 1990s to her work as a funder supporting LGBT issues at the Ford Foundation and the Arcus Foundation, Vaid has played a role in setting the movement priorities. “The book has a pretty pointed critique” yet it is “collegial,” she said, readily acknowledging that her analysis is in fact “self-criticism because I am in that group. I don’t remove myself from that.” In all, “I love the LGBT community

and our movement. I feel so positively about our queer variance, our queer intelligence, and our queer resistance,” said Vaid. “But no,” she said, “I don’t think we have done a very good job” or “have made any progress” in adding, for instance “issues of poverty,” HIV/AIDS health disparities, and other concerns to the gay-rights agenda, including “criminal justice issues, women’s issues – violence against women, women earning less than men – or expanding the definition of family in welfare programs to enable low-income lesbians with kids to be covered.” To mobilize larger numbers of feminist activists, Vaid co-founded the Lesbian Political Action Committee, which since its founding last July has raised more than $750,000 from donors in 44 states, with donations ranging from $5 dollars to hundreds of thousands. LPAC (http://www. teamlpac.com) is open to anyone, including bisexual and trans women and also gay men and other allies who feel women’s rights are as important as LGBT equality.

Optimism

For all her concerns, however, Vaid is optimistic about the movement, offering another way to look at the havewe-made-progress question. “When I see sophisticated work that activists are doing around health care, the impressive hidden work that provides access and opportunities and changes and affects people’s lives, then I feel more hopeful,” she said. In addition, “When I look at a state like Massachusetts where we have won formal equality in many domains, I see how the movement continues to push to do the training, implementation, and education so that all parts of our community can exercise the rights that we have won, that makes me feel hopeful,” Vaid said. She was referring to the Massachusetts transgender civil rights law that took effect last year after a six-year push by local activists, along with advocates continuing to press state lawmakers for more comprehensive anti-bullying and safe-schools legislation. Other statewide priorities include cradle-to-grave advocacy for LGBT youth and seniors, people living with HIV/AIDS, and survivors of intimate-partner violence. There are other indictors of the LGBT movement’s health and vibrancy, too. “The movement is much larger than it was back then” in earlier decades, said Vaid. “I still feel by no means has the movement peaked.” Vaid points to the Task Force’s Creating Change conference, which each year draws thousands of activists, as evidence of the span of the movement from moderate to conservative to much more radical grassroots groups. Held this year in Atlanta, the 25th Creating Change gathering is taking place January 23-27. “The vastness of the movement and its decentralized nature make me hopeful,” she said. “The process of being involved in something where you really can change lives and make a huge difference that makes the movement irresistible.” The LGBT movement’s “honesty” is another hallmark of its irresistibility, she writes in her book’s introduction. Another positive sign for LGBT rights, Vaid said, “is the extent to which [gay equality] is an issue for non-gay people,” most notably young people. She cited the 2009 March on Washington where scores of straight people, many of them students from college campuses nationwide, carried signs reading, “I am a heterosexual ally.” “It is extraordinary. The expansion of the movement beyond the LGBT community” to increasing numbers of heterosexual allies “is one of the reasons that we are win-

ning,” Vaid said. Perhaps the best example of nongay allies making a difference was their key role in winning marriage referenda on Election Day. “In every one of those four states [Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington], you had heterosexual leaders – major politicians, major business figures, leaders of color, faith-based leaders, saying ‘We support this,’” Vaid explained. “That’s really a different situation than four or eight years ago.” President Barack Obama’s coming out for same-sex marriage was also a game changer. “If you think about it, the supporters of the president are the people who support marriage equality or the expansion of LGBT rights – young people, women voters, people of color who are overwhelmingly in support of fair and equal treatment,” said Vaid. “It’s been so interesting for me to see what Jesse Jackson used to call the Rainbow Coalition actually come into being for this election.” In winning marriage equality this time around in three states, and defeating a constitutional amendment in Minnesota, lessons learned from the Proposition 8 battle were also helpful. “What I took away from the 2008 California defeat was the need to do more work to engage people and involve non-gay people in our movement,” she said. “We did go back and do more public education and engagement of different kinds of [faith-based] congregations and populations, and many, many more straight allies came out and stepped up to advocate on our behalf,” Vaid added. “Public education is a critical element of how we are winning.”

Keep guard up

For all her optimism, however, Vaid maintains the LGBT movement must keep up its guard. “What always worries me is the power of the opposition,” she said. “I am not complacent about them. They are not just going to go away or withdraw because we are winning. “The resistance in some ways is becoming more sophisticated,” Vaid said. “The whole expansion of religious exemptions in laws that are passed. It’s really something to be worried about. “I think the gay community has to get more sophisticated in how we think about religious liberty and exemptions to civil rights laws,” she explained. “It’s a complicated argument for those of us who actually believe in freedom of religion and religious liberty” and yet “are civil libertarians and believe in the Constitution.” It’s not yet clear whether movement leaders are inclined to tackle a more inclusive LGBT agenda. But the movement has matured in one way. “The LGBT community is more politically hard core in how to work with friendly administrations,” said Vaid, referring to Obama’s leverage of federal government agencies through cabinet offices – including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and State Department, among others – to chip away at discrimination and inequality. One good example is a presidential memorandum through which Obama directed HHS to require all hospitals receiving Medicaid and Medicare to prohibit discrimination in visitation against LGBT people. “There’s a tremendous amount of work going on in the federal agencies, and the agenda isn’t just about getting legislation through Congress,” Vaid explained. “The movement is more skilled in taking advantage of those kinds of opportunities [administrative agency and regulatory processes] than we were 20 years ago.”t

Politics>>

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

EQCA ED O’Connor goes to Sacramento by Matthew S. Bajko

ne of John O’Connor’s first orders of business as the new executive director of Equality California is to build relationships with lawmakers in Sacramento and Governor Jerry Brown’s administration. Based in Los Angeles, O’Connor recently spent three days in the state capital pressing the flesh with Democratic legislators and gubernatorial appointees. He met with 22 individuals, including Nancy McFadden, Brown’s executive secretary for legislation, appointments and policy, and Dana Williamson, the governor’s senior adviser for cabinet and external affairs. “They were very receptive in talking with us and hearing about what is happening with EQCA,” O’Connor told the Bay Area Reporter January 10 during an editorial board meeting. Asked if he had discussed particular appointments with Brown’s staff, such as the six vacancies on the San Francisco Superior Court, O’Connor said the conversations were not that specific. “We didn’t have a particular agenda on appointments or anything,” he said. “The discussion around appointments just was that they welcome discussion from our community and absolutely are open to hearing from us.” He did not meet with any Republican lawmakers during his visit but did sit down with a number of gay and lesbian Democratic legislators as EQCA gears up for the new legislative session. He also met with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, as education issues are a top concern for the statewide LGBT organization. “The list of people for me to meet with is long,” explained O’Connor. Lawmakers told the B.A.R. that O’Connor had made a good first impression. “I thought he was very committed and very, very energetic,” said gay state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco). Gay state Senator Mark Leno (DSan Francisco) described O’Connor as “very capable, passionate and engaged” in his new job. “Certainly, for those of us here in Sacramento to have a respected ally can only be advantageous,” added Leno. Gay Assemblyman Rich Gordon (D-Menlo Park) also was impressed. “He is someone who clearly understands, I think, several key things: the challenge of managing and running a nonprofit; two, our community; and three, the political environment,” said Gordon, re-

Health care

From page 2

In a message to the Legislature January 10, the day he released his proposal, Brown said the state “is poised to achieve something that has eluded us for more than a decade – a budget that lives within its means, now and for many years to come.” “Absent changes, the 2013-14

Street widening

From page 1

would work but want to show people our idea tomorrow.” Another proposal is turning the crosswalks at 18th Street into what is known as a scramble, where cars in all directions are stopped to let

Courtesy EQCA

EQCA Executive Director John O’Connor

elected chair of the LGBT Legislative Caucus this month. “Moving forward, having the stability that having a permanent executive director brings is just good for the organization.” All three expect a main focus for O’Connor will be bolstering EQCA’s budget. “Obviously, a lot of what they do depends on that kind of support and fundraising,” said Ammiano. Assisting O’Connor in Sacramento will be Alice Kessler, who is remaining as EQCA’s main lobbyist on a contract basis, and Jo Michael, a trans man hired on as EQCA’s legislative associate based in the capital. O’Connor has some experience with the statehouse. Former first lady Maria Shriver hired him to help establish and run the California Hall of Fame. “I commuted from L.A. for six months. I worked myself into the ground but it was also a wonderful experience,” recalled O’Connor, who worked with Kessler to push for Harvey Milk’s induction in 2009.

Vicky Marlane street naming effort launches

An effort to rename a portion of Turk Street in honor of the late Vicky Marlane, a transgender drag performer, kicks off this weekend. Marlane died in 2011 at the age of 76 due to AIDS-related complications. Born Donald Sterger in Crookston, Minnesota, Marlane started out as a traveling circus performer before settling in San Francisco in 1966. She underwent sex reassignment surgery in the 1980s and years later started a popular drag revue show at the Tenderloin gay bar Aunt Charlie’s. Last summer the Political Note-

budget is projected to be balanced,” according to the governor’s budget summary. However, there’s no adequate reserve, and the state still has billions of dollars in debt. The budget includes a proposal for a $1 billion reserve. Overall general fund spending is expected to grow from $93 billion this year to $97.7 billion next year. Most of the growth is in health care and education.t

pedestrians cross all at once. An earlier study found it to be impractical to install, but it is being revisited. “We are looking at the possibility of it,” said Perry. Another community meeting will be held in February, with a final design completed by April. Construction is slated to begin in January 2014.t

book reported on efforts by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club to honor Marlane and suggested renaming the block of Turk Street between Jones and Taylor, home to Aunt Charlie’s, Vicki Marlane Way. Milk members are working to rename that stretch of Turk Vicky MarLane. The block is also where the Compton’s Cafeteria revolt by transgender people occurred in 1966. “She was a great entertainer,” recalled close friend Felicia A. Elizondo, a transgender activist who is working with the GLBT History Museum to mount an exhibit about Marlane. “It is time to recognize the transgender community.” A petition drive supporting the street renaming idea kicks off Sunday, January 27 at El Rio. The event, from 3 to 8 p.m., will double as a fundraiser for the Milk club’s Howard Grayson LGBT Elder Life Conference set for March 30. The club plans to hit the streets to seek signers for the petition, which will be posted to its website at http:// www.milkclub.org. It is working with District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim’s office to navigate the city approval process for renaming a street. San Francisco has renamed three streets for LGB people. A block of 16th Street in the Castro is Jose Sarria Court, named after the first gay man and drag queen to seek public office in the city. A block of Myrtle Street near City Hall is named for lesbian author Alice B. Toklas, who was born nearby. And Jack Kerouac Alley in North Beach honors the bisexual Beat Generation writer. “The LGBT community has helped give San Francisco the edge that makes people want to come visit us but the ‘T’ has never gotten its rightful significance,” said Milk club member Susan Englander.

El Rio is located at 3158 Mission Street. There is a sliding cover of $8$10, with all of the entrance fees from 3 to 4 p.m. going to the Milk club.

Speier hosts SF town hall

Congresswoman Jackie Speier is hosting a town hall meeting this weekend in San Francisco. The Democratic lawmaker represents the city’s southern neighborhoods as well as part of San Mateo County. The meeting will run from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, January 26 at Temple United Methodist Church,

65 Beverly Street. The church is near the intersection of 19th Avenue, Junipero Serra and Highway 280.t Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. The column returns Monday, January 28. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

<< Obituaries

8 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

Gay journalist Michael Triplett dies by Cynthia Laird

ichael Triplett, a gay journalist who recently became board president of the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, died Thursday, January 17, the organization announced. He was 48. The cause of death was cancer, NLGJA officials said in a news release. Mr. Triplett had only been board president for a few months, but had been a member of NLGJA’s leadership team for several years, first as a Washington, D.C. chapter board member and president and then as a national board member and vice president for print. “His quiet demeanor masked a steely resolve and an uncanny ability to push our organization forward,” NLGJA’s release stated. “Michael quickly became someone who could be relied on both to provide sage advice as well as the time and energy to help us accomplish our goals.” Mr. Triplett was the assistant managing editor at Bloomberg-

Courtesy NLGJA

Michael Triplett

BNA, where he used his legal background to develop and lead reports on tax and labor policy, as well as grooming journalists around the world. NLGJA members often called on Mr. Triplett to provide a legal perspective to policy issues and governance, and he frequently

The locket by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

he other day an otherwise non-descript Priority Mail box arrived at my doorstep. Inside was a late holiday gift from my father: a silver locket containing a photo of him and the inscription “I am with you always.” I’ll admit, it’s an odd gift to receive. I would think a locket with your father’s photo might be a more apt gift for a young girl than one several years past

two puberties. I also cannot help but read in a message about my father’s own mortality as he enters his 70s. My sister got one of these as well, so I suppose we’re twinsies. Nevertheless, I was a bit taken back by this gift of jewelry from my father. It says a lot about my family, my relationship with it, and my own transition. When I was born, my father beamed with pride. An avid train nut, I was his “Little Engineer.” He

sat on panels covering legal issues at NLGJA conventions. Mr. Triplett was born April 20, 1964. According to his Facebook page, he received his law degree from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1998. From 2000 to 2011 he was an adjunct instructor at the university’s Washington College of Law. He received a master’s degree in education from the University of Missouri in 1988. Organization officials noted that Mr. Triplett played an enormous role in NLGJA joining Unity: Journalists of Color in 2011 and was one of the group’s first representatives to the Unity board. David Steinberg, who served as NLGJA board president from 20082012, and is the copy desk chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, praised Mr. Triplett and said he would be missed. “Michael was a great journalist, a dedicated leader, and an incredible friend. He worked tirelessly for NLGJA on the local and national level, and he was instrumental in NLGJA joining” Unity, Steinberg said in an

email. “Michael’s time with us was too short, but it is no exaggeration to say we are all better people for having known him.” Paul Cheung, with the Asian American Journalists Association, offered condolences on Mr. Triplett’s Facebook page last week, calling him “a true champion for diversity in media.” On the Unity board, Mr. Triplett worked with NLGJA’s partner groups to fully incorporate sexual orientation and gender identity into Unity’s mission and change its name to Unity: Journalists for Diversity. At NLGJA Mr. Triplett was a principal contributor to the organization’s ReACT blog. Bay Area Reporter assistant editor Matthew S. Bajko said that Mr. Triplett’s blog posts frequently looked at mainstream media coverage of LGBT issues. “His critical commentary and analysis of how mainstream media covers LGBT issues will be sorely missed,” said Bajko, who previously served on the NLGJA national and northern California chapter boards.

Mr. Triplett suffered from tongue cancer for nearly two years. In an April 2012 blog post on the Good Men Project, he wrote about his medical issues and said that his cancer “is part of a growing ‘epidemic’ of oral cancer unrelated to smoking and drinking. Instead, there is an increase – primarily in middle-aged, white men – of tongue and other mouth cancers connected to the human papillomavirus. HPV has traditionally been connected to cervical cancer in women, but there is growing evidence of the virus being a major risk factor for getting head and neck cancer.” Mr. Triplett said he had never smoked and wasn’t more than a social drinker. Mr. Triplett is survived by his partner, John Squier. NLGJA officials announced January 22 that Jen Christensen of CNN was affirmed as president and will serve out the remainder of Mr. Triplett’s term, through the 2014 convention. A memorial service is planned in Washington, D.C.t

named me, giving me the first and middle name of his best friend. I was expected to carry on the family line. I think, too, I was expected to fulfill some of the things that, perhaps, he had not been able to. I was quite young the first time my family and transgenderism collided. We were on the way home from a Sunday drive, my parents up front listening to a call-in radio advice show, me laying down in the back watching the moon pass behind the trees out the window. On the radio, a caller was asking for advice on how to deal with their son, who had just announced his intention to transition. I don’t recall what the show’s host suggested, as I was listening to my parents discuss the caller’s dilemma. The consensus was that

this would be a terrible situation for the parents, and one they were glad to never have to face. This was the first time I had ever heard that transition was possible – and in the same moment, I learned how devastating it would be to my parents. I was probably 5 or so at that time. Fast forward: I was a freshman in high school when my father asked for my help one night. He was a wedding photographer and wanted to take a look at a church and reception hall the night before a client’s service. It was odd that he’d ask me along, but I could certainly not turn down an offer to help. After a half hour or so of looking for all the best angles from which to shoot, we stopped by an ice cream shop on the way home. While in the car with him, as I sipped my peanut butter and chocolate malt, he let me know that he and my mother had discovered an item of women’s attire in my room. “I don’t want to know where this came from, or why it was there,” he said. “You can have it back. But I think you know what to do with it.” Not another word about it was said, and we went home in silence. Not quite 10 years later, I was sitting down with both of my parents, and telling them that I was planning to begin my own transition in a few months. This was the first time I had ever seen my father cry – and to date, the only time. A few weeks later, at an ill-considered family counseling session, he said that he had expected me to say that I had an incurable disease like AIDS – and that maybe that would have been easier news for him to take. Another handful of years passed, with me largely out of contact with the family while I transitioned. Then I ended up speaking on behalf of the family at a memorial service for a cousin of mine while my father sat in the audience. My father and I passed a few stilted pleasantries that day. After more time, I found myself visiting home during another family funeral. My father was showing me a mobile photo studio he’d invested

in. He took a moment after pointing out all the nooks and crannies for doing on-site one-hour developing to have another brief talk. “I know I don’t always say the right thing, or use the right name,” he said. “I am trying, though. I hope you know that.” Not long after that, a mutual friend told me about my dad bragging about me, talking about my activism work – and getHeather Rose Brown ting my name right. Now, today: a locket. Perhaps an odd memorial, but also an acknowledgement of sorts. I can’t say it is anything I ever expected to own, not the sort of thing I would have expected to receive from my father now or, quite honestly, any other time I have known him. It’s an odd gift, not one I’m all that sure I’ll wear – but one I am honored to have. I know that my experiences are not that uncommon for a lot of other transgender people. Dealing with our families is often a source of pain, frustration, and heartbreak. I assumed for many years that I would not have a relationship with my parents ever again. I also know that it will likely never be quite what it once was. Yet I’ve seen my very conservative father, the same one who forwards me email from his tea party friends, turn quite a few corners. He’s gone from someone who considered me all but dead to him, to someone who’s trying to reach out to and reconcile with me. So as I share this story with you remember, as bleak as it may be, there’s always hope.t

Obituaries >> George Roger Heyl May 2, 1962 – January 10, 2013

George Heyl, 50, died January 10, 2013 from complications of late stage intestinal tuberculosis after a two-week struggle at UCSF intensive care. George is survived by his brother, Mark A. Heyl, Esq., sister-in-law Yvonne Heyl, and two nephews; his father George Bateman and step-father Roger Heyl; his stepmother Sandra and Jim Maresca; his sisters Alexandra and Alison Bateman; and Uncle Jerry. George is also survived by two ex-partners, Willis Phillip Ke and Jonathan DeMichael, and his Bay Area friends Rob Farrimond, Paul Kroupa and Tony C. Zizzo, Don Meyle, and Keal Ausbrooks. George was known around the Castro for living the good life – whether he was leading the pool team for the Moby Dick’s Blowholes, having a beer at the Mix, or dancing up a storm at Badlands. You could often find George tanning himself in Dolores Beach or the R3 Hotel in Guerneville. George’s interests included gourmet cooking. He also loved going to local wineries (was known as the Steward of Westside Road), beaches, and taking long drives along the coast, which we did as often as the days were clear and sunny in San Francisco. George was raised in Los Altos, graduated from Los Altos High School in 1980 and graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a BS in computer science in 1984. George also lived in New York City and Europe. George will be missed and never forgotten for his generous, kind, and happy nature. And for those of us who knew him well, we understood him and his proud nature even through all the amazing stories. He

was a loyal friend. There will be a memorial service on Saturday, January 26 at 11 a.m. at Duggan’s Serra Mortuary, 500 Westlake Avenue, Daly City 94014, (650) 756-4500, just four blocks south of the Daly City BART station. Rest in peace, dear George.

Ravenlight October 22, 1952 – December 12, 2012

Whatever Ravenlight did, she did intensely – high femme, political activism, SM flamboyance, bodywork therapies. Many in the Bay Area remember seeing her march in gay Pride parades, wearing outfits designed to reveal what she called her “de-breast,” to raise funds for breast cancer awareness. For the past 20 years Ravenlight had a successful bodywork practice, with offices in San Francisco and the East Bay. She was fluent in a large number of healing modalities, including massage, craniosacral, and lymph drainage therapies. Over the past decade, she became a devotee of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, and was given the name Rajeshwari by Amma. The strength of her faith led her to courageously orchestrate reconciliation with her biological family. Ravenlight died of pancreatic cancer less than a year after her diagnosis. She will be missed by many friends and clients; her brother Peter Dannenhoffer; her close friends and caregivers Zoe Balfour, Rajani Venkatraman Levis, and Sora Counts; and her beloved cats, Fetch and BBC. A celebration of Ravenlight’s life

will be held at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland 94609, on Saturday January 26 from 2 to 4 p.m. Everyone is welcome.

Rene Jesus Valdes May 27, 1948 – February 2, 2012

One year ago, Rene, linguist, Gay Games gold medalist, and 30-year HIV survivor, died after increasingly difficult bouts of mental anguish. He was born in Havana, Cuba and battled discrimination after being expelled from university and employment for being gay. He came to the U.S. in 1980 in the Mariel boatlift and battled further discrimination by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which sought to deny his citizenship when he admitted to them he was gay. After a lengthy court fight he won his citizenship in 1989. He quickly found work in the burgeoning IT world and began his career as a computational linguist. He won several awards from Microsoft for his work in developing spelling and grammar checks in a host of languages. He spoke seven languages including Esperanto and could get along in at least six others. He was a handsome and sexy man who loved to sing and was the life of any group. He began a long-distance relationship with his partner Alan Lessik in 2000 and finally moved to their Bernal Heights home in 2010. He is also missed by his twin sons, Sandor and Franco, his aunt Helga Engelhardt, former partners, relatives, and friends around the world.

On the web Online content this week includes the Jock Talk and Out in the World columns; and articles on the Gay Games, 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and an upcoming exhibit at the GLBT History Museum. www.ebar.com.

t <<

Community News>>

Obama

From page 1

struggle in his January 21 remarks. “By lifting up the lives of LGBT families for the very first time in an inaugural address, President Obama sent a clear message to LGBT young people from the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountains that this country’s leaders will fight for them until equality is the law of the land,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin. Evan Wolfson, head of the national Freedom to Marry group, said Obama, by including the gay civil rights movement alongside the movements for the civil rights of blacks and women, “rightly exalted the struggle for the freedom to marry as part of America’s moral commitment to equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In his first inaugural address in 2009, Obama emphasized unity, and did not refer to LGBT citizens directly

News Briefs

From page 5

cisco – activists, progressive voters, and people like me, lucky to represent the city.” Goldstein attended City College and received an AA degree and certificate in paralegal and legal studies. Initially, the fund will generate $500 scholarships for two students. “I funded these scholarships as a way to remember his commitment to his community, and I hope they will help support a new generation of activists,” said Ammiano. Information and the application can be downloaded at http://www. ccsf.edu/NEW/content/dam/ccsf/ documents/matric/scholarship/Jan 4_2012 Michael Goldstein Memorial Scholarship App.pdf. The deadline is March 1. Those who would like to contribute to the scholarship fund should send checks made to Michael Goldstein Memorial Scholarship, 125 Upper Terrace, San Francisco, CA 94117.

Public safety meeting in the Castro

District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener and San Francisco police offi-

Guest Opinion

From page 4

sires often change. My partner and I find it valuable to check in with each other regularly to ensure we’re still comfortable with our open agreements. This allows us the opportunity to reaffirm the agreements that continue to work for us, and it gives us a chance to renegotiate those that don’t. I encourage couples in open relationships to be mindful of and to communicate about their physical, sexual, and mental health. As a magnetic (HIV serodiscordant) couple, my partner and I have developed and maintain shared agreements that sup-

O’Connor

From page 1

dit, which we sought and secured in 2012.” The estimated release date for the audit, which covers school safety and non-discrimination laws, is June. In his meeting with the B.A.R., O’Connor suggested he and others anticipate the audit will include findings they’re already aware of. “We know kids continue to be bullied, harassed, and beaten up by their peers and sometimes even by teachers,” he said. “They are punished for speaking up

or indirectly. Some last-minute inclusion of gay people in various venues of the inaugural festivities were generally unpublicized and unseen. Instead, the high-profile inclusion of California evangelist Rick Warren shone attention on his support for voter-passed Proposition 8 in California just two months earlier, banning marriage for same-sex couples.

Visible inclusion

This time, however, there was positive and visible inclusion of LGBT people throughout the inaugural ceremony. Delivering the benediction on the inaugural podium Monday, the Reverend Luis Leon, the pastor of an Episcopal church near the White House that the Obama family attends, urged that “prejudice and rancor” not be allowed to rule our hearts but that, instead, all citizens hold each other in “mutual regard” no matter what their race or gender or immigrant status, and whether

cials will hold a community meeting on public safety Monday, January 28 from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center, 100 Collingwood Street (at 18th), in the second floor multipurpose room. According to a news release from Castro Community on Patrol, representatives from the Mission, Northern, and Park police stations will be on hand for a presentation followed by an opportunity for questions. Community co-sponsors include CCOP, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Stop the Violence, the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District, Merchants of Upper Market and Castro, and the Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association. A similar meeting for Noe Valley is expected to be held in mid-February.

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

“gay or straight, rich or poor.” Press reports prior to the inaugural ceremony characterized Leon as a “gay-affirming” clergyman at Saint John’s Church, which also celebrates marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. Leon replaced Atlanta pastor Louie Giglio who was initially invited to deliver the benediction but who withdrew from the ceremony after criticism surfaced about anti-gay remarks he made in a sermon in the 1990s. In that sermon, Giglio called homosexuality “probably the greatest addiction” and said that marriage between same-sex partners is “absolutely undermining the whole order of our society.” An openly gay man, Richard Blanco of Bethel, Maine, presented a poem as part of the inaugural ceremony. Drawing from common images of Americans in all walks of life, Blanco’s poem spoke of the nation’s oneness. “One sun rose on us today,” he noted. “... one light waking up rooftops, under each one a story ... my face,

your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors.” He spoke of sights common to all, of the rows of colorful fruits and vegetables at markets, as “rainbows begging our praise.” And he spoke of “carrying our lives without prejudice” and “giving thanks for a love that loves you back.” Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, delivered the invocation at the inaugural ceremony. She did not mention LGBT people specifically, but repeatedly referred to the importance of diversity in the nation’s people and in the principle “everyone is included.” If there was any mar to the historic inauguration day, it was a tiny display of hostile signs along the motorcade route to the U.S. Capitol Monday morning. According to a pool reporter for the White House, a small number of people held up signs saying, “God hates fags” and “God hates Obama.” The messages were typical of a Kansas pastor and his followers who have acquired considerable

media attention by displaying hatefilled messages at gays during various high-profile events. During the inaugural parade Monday afternoon, the Lesbian and Gay Band Association appeared in the third of five divisions of parade contingents, each division led by a different branch of the armed services. The Third Division was led by the U.S. Navy. This was the band’s second appearance in an inaugural parade. The Civil Rights Float was described by the Presidential Inaugural Committee as featuring “images representing historic struggles of many of the civil rights movements in our country,” and included an image of Jeanne Manford, the recently deceased national founder of Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and her late gay son Morty Manford. Liz Owen, communications director for PFLAG National, said the organization was “thrilled” to have the Manfords included.t

series, the forum will look at navigating open relationships as a gay man. Discussion will look at why some couples decide to be open, tools for communication with your partner(s), ways to protect your physical and mental health, and how the marriage equality movement has changed perceptions of same-sex relationships. For more about the forum, see this week’s Guest Opinion. For more information, visit www.sfaf. org/realtalk.

sexual function, sexual wellness research, and how it pertains to the queer community. Shindel noted that a big part of sexual wellness is the ability to engage in satisfying sexual activity and that LGBTQQI people have been underrepresented in such research. For questions, contact the UC Davis Department of Urology at (916) 734-4561.

and the Oakland East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus. There will be food and beverages available, including no-host bar. The venue is within walking distance of the Hayward BART station. Attendees must be 21 and over. For more information, visit www. lgbtlighthousehayward.org.

Vegas coming to Hayward

Bay Area American Indian TwoSpirit will host its second annual Powwow Saturday, February 2 from noon to 5 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison Street. The event is free and open to the public. Roger Kuhn, a member of BAAITS who is helping promote the event, said the powwow will feature LGBTQ and two-spirit American Indians from around the Bay Area, other states, and Canada. The host drum will be Southern Pride of Oklahoma. All drums are welcome. There will be dance competitions, vendor booths, traditional Native fry bread, and lots of community spirit, Kuhn added. For more information, visit www. baaits.org.t

Two-spirit powwow in Oakland

Forum to look at open relationships

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation will host a community forum looking at open relationships Wednesday, January 30 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street. Part of the foundation’s Real Talk

New research on sexual wellness and the LGBTQQI communities will be discussed at a presentation Wednesday, January 30 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street, room 300. Dr. Alan Shindel, an assistant professor in the department of urology at UC Davis, and his collaborators at UCSF have published the results of a series of surveys on sexual wellness and dysfunction in women who have sex with women and men who have sex with men. During the session, Shindel will present his research, discuss possible future research, and answer questions about

The Lighthouse LGBT Community Center in Hayward will hold its annual Viva Las Vegas party and fundraiser Saturday, February 1 from 6 to 10:30 p.m. in the rotunda at City Hall, 777 B Street. The casino night benefit is the largest of the year for the Hayward center, and funds raised will help the center meet operating costs and plan for future events. Admission, $25 in advance or $30 at the door, includes $100 in gaming chips. Games include black jack, craps, poker and roulette. There will also be a silent auction that includes sports memorabilia and a 50-50 cash raffle. Live entertainment includes Sasha Stephane as Cher, the Golden Follies Dance and Cabaret Troupe,

port our overall health goals. We engage in safer sex practices, both within and outside of the relationship. I take HIV medications, which suppress my virus to undetectable levels, improving my own general sense of wellness, and minimizing potential risk to others. Neither of us uses drugs, and we prefer potential sex partners to be sober as well, as using substances can lead to unwanted alterations in decision making. We talk about our respective HIV statuses with prospective partners. We both get tested for sexually transmitted infections regularly. We understand that there are always risks, but we work to minimize the potential risk to each of us, and to the relationship itself

through our continued pledge to reevaluate, renegotiate, and recommit to the beautiful relationship and life we have created together. For some men, an open relationship can be a wonderful and beautiful thing. I recognize it’s not for everyone – even for me prior to my current relationship. But for guys who choose to be open, it can reignite passion in their relationship and create an intense, intimate bond. It can also be challenging and can sometimes lead to the demise of a relationship, which is why honest communication is so important. I’m not an open-relationship advocate. I am a relationship advocate.

My clients have made their own decisions to be in monogamous or open relationships. Each can be equally meaningful and satisfying for those who choose them. If you and your partner(s) are having a difficult time defining and negotiating a shared understanding of your relationship, know that there are conscientious, sex-positive, informed, and skilled psychotherapists and organizations available to support you. Although this opinion article primarily focuses on gay male relationships, I have the utmost respect and concern for all LGBT and queeridentified relationships. I honor our community, in the broadest

sense, for creating and sustaining intimate and meaningful relationships, often in the midst of great sociocultural and political hostility. I leave you with this quote from Audre Lorde: “Without community, there is certainly no liberation.”t

rather than protected.” He added, “It is an outrage schools and districts throughout the state have not protected these kids.”

associate. Lorenz had worked with the group as a programs and development consultant for the last year. Mele, who coordinates the finances of EQCA and its educational arm Equality California Institute, among other duties, had previously served as EQCA’s finance director but left in 2011. Roth declined to share salary information for any of the three.

decline in revenues; it spent nearly all of last year without a permanent executive director and is rebuilding. Documents that EQCA filed with the IRS for the 2011-2012 fiscal year show that contributions and grants declined from about $3.2 million the prior year to almost $1.4 million. Total expenses dropped from approximately $4.5 million to about $2 million. O’Connor expressed optimism in EQCA’s financial future. “The improvement of our reputation and telling success stories of EQCA has resonated with people, major donors and foundations,” O’Connor said. He added, “Some are going to stay on the sidelines and

take a wait and see approach, which is completely understandable,” but he also said, “I am completely optimistic we will rebuild our financial health in 2013.” So far, opportunities for people to meet with O’Connor or other EQCA officials is limited. Asked about having a public forum in San Francisco, he said, “I don’t have specific plans for that.” O’Connor did say that EQCA had an online forum on Facebook recently and he said the group will maintain a presence in San Francisco. Additionally, the organization will hold its San Francisco awards gala next month.t

New staff

EQCA this week announced three new staff hires. A Tuesday, January 22 email blast from the group says the additions are part of O’Connor’s goal “to extend the capability of the organization by building a core team of dedicated, fulltime staff.” Jack Lorenz has been brought on as deputy director of programs and development; Steve Mele is returning as finance director; and, as the B.A.R. previously reported, Jo Michael has been chosen as legislative

Sexual wellness research presentation

Fundraising

Besides legislation and bringing on more staff, another important aspect of O’Connor’s work is fundraising, something that he acknowledged as the agency recovers from a

Ramon Martinez, PsyD, is a post-doctoral psychology fellow at Psychological Services Center in Oakland. The Real Talk forum on open relationships happens Wednesday, January 30, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the LGBT center, 1800 Market Street. The forum is free and open to the public. Learn more at http://www.sfaf.org/ realtalk.

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10 • Bay area reporter • January 24-30, 2013

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034787600

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034786600

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034819800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: METALMAN, 2275 MCKINNON AVE., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kwok Yam Jung. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/24/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/24/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GAUNTLET GALLERY, 1040 LARKIN ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Art for the People, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SALON 301, 301 BALBOA, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ahsha Murphy. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/11/13.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-03479300

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034808500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: L J C, 101 UTAH ST. # 210-A, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Reinfrido Z. De Guzman. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/28/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LA URBANA, 661 DIVISADERO ST., SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Latin Hospitality Group, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/08/13.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgES Dated 12/20/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SAN FRANCISCO CULINARY VENTURES LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 124-140 COLUMBUS AVE., SF, CA 94133. Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SAlE gENErAl EATINg plACE JAN 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034799600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PANORAMA PROPERTIES, SFBA, 47 PANORAMA DR., SF, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ricky R. Shankar. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/03/13.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034796300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRYANT AUTO BODY, 974 FOLSOM ST., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ian Shin. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/31/12.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034801200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HELIX ATELIER, 3110 CASTRO ST., SF, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Mark A. Hanks. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/03/13.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034792200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DOGGIE ROMP, 9 MARITIME PLAZA #30, SF, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kaleen Wong. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/27/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/27/12.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034771100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MALIGEN MOBILE BARTENDING, 2 RIO VERDE ST., SF, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Eugene Santos & Liza Sanchez. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/13/12.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034797300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: J TU CAFE, 582 SUTTER ST., SF, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Serena and Jayden, Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/02/13.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034795600

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANdONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-034632000 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: LA CHAVELA, 661-663 DIVISADERO ST., SF, CA 94117. This business was conducted by a limited liability corporation, and signed by Latin Hospitality Group, LLC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/05/12.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgES Dated 01/09/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: EL FARO, LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 1654 HAIGHT ST., SF, CA 94117-2816. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEEr & WINE EATINg plACE JAN 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034829000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NG GREEN CLEANING, 1240 14TH AVE. #302, SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Nicholas Ryan Goss. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/17/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/15/13

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034811500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TVD CONSTRUCTION HELPER, 1028 HOWARD ST. #507, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Duc Tran. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034812200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SEIZE THE DAY TAX LIENS & DEEDS, 48 HAIGHT ST. #5, SF, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Laura M. Haber. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034811000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SOCIALCENTS FINANCIAL PLANNING, 969 HAYES ST. #3, SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Catherine Gibbon Covington. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034814300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: V. KUREK & CO., 1852 DIVISADERO ST., SF, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Katarzyna Mlyniuk. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034813900

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034820100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOLDEN CATERING, 30166 INDUSTRIAL PKWY SW #333, HAYWARD, CA 94544. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Jimmy Le. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/11/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034807100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SCOUT’S HONOR CLOTHING COMPANY, 1408 8TH AVE. #6, SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Clare Marie Myers. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/07/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/07/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034792300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EXPLORE SAN FRANCISCO, 39 ROSEMONT PLACE, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Michael Moran. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/27/12.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034824100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HUMMINGBEAR DESIGN, 457 ALVARADO ST., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Tanya Kimball Napier. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/14/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034814200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CELLO STREET QUARTET, 480 FELL ST. #1, SF, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Andres Vera. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034814100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HILLSIDE SUPPER CLUB, 300 PRECITA AVE., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Antonio Ferrari, Jonathan Sutton, Marcelo Gomez & Maria Gomez. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034827300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STELLADORO PIZZERIA, 808 DIVISADERO ST., SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed California Pizza Corporation (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/11/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/15/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034801600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MISSION ORTHODONTIC, 2460 MISSION ST. #215, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Yang DDS Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/03/13.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034798900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ENCORE.ORG, 1201 RALSTON AVE #202, SF, CA 94129. This business is conducted by a corporation non-profit 501(c)3, and is signed Civic Ventures (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/18/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/31/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARIA MEJIA HISTOLOGY SERVICES, 11 DOLORES ST. #15, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Maria Mejia. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAISON RESTAURANT, 178 TOWNSEND ST., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Saison Dining Group LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/02/13.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013

STATEMENT OF ABANdONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-034246500 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: CAFFE COZZOLINO, 300 PRECITA AVE., SF, CA 94110. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Marcelo Gomez. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/03/12.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANdONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-032230900 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: STELLADORO PIZZERIA & RESTAURANT, 808 DIVISADERO ST., SF, CA 94117. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Ann Ngo. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/02/09.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION FOr ChANgE IN OWNErShIp OF AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgE lICENSE Dated 01/11/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ANTONIO FAUSTINO FERRARI, MARCELO GOMEZ, MARIA DEL ROSARIO GOMEZ, JONATHAN CHRISTOPHER SUTTON. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 300 PRECITA AVE., SF, CA 94110-4725. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEEr & WINE EATINg plACE JAN 24, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgES Dated 01/18/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SHABU HOUSE CLEMENT. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 354 CLEMENT ST., SF, CA 94118-2316. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEEr & WINE EATINg plACE JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 2013 OrdEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549225 In the matter of the application of: JENNIFER THUY HO-TRAN for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JENNIFER THUY HOTRAN is requesting that the names TAYLOR TIGER HO-TRAN be changed to TAYLOR TIGER TRAN, TYLER KIM LONG HO-TRAN be changed to TYLER LONG TRAN, and SOPHIA EMILY HO-TRAN be changed to SOPHIA EMILY TRAN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Rm. 514 on the 14th of March 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 OrdEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549230 In the matter of the application of: KAREN LYNN BERRYMAN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner KAREN LYNN BERRYMAN, is requesting that the name KAREN LYNN BERRYMAN, be changed to LIAM COLLINS BERRYMAN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 26th of March 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034799200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FRONT WINDOW PRODUCTIONS, 1519 OAK ST. #5, SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Cameron Lee Stiehl. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/02/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/02/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034829800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FIMJAM TRADING, 935 GEARY ST. #303, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed David M. James. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/16/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034833000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FOG CITY TAX PREP, 717 PAGE ST., SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ronald L. Seely. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/16/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034838300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO CONVENTION & MEETING PLANNERS, 3527 OLIVER CT., LAFAYETTE, CA 94549. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Shmuel S.Finkelstein. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/18/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034825500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KIRBUS SCREEN PRINTING, 3150 18TH ST. #223, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Karl Kirbus. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/14/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034825600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LATITUDE 38 FLIES, 3150 18TH ST. #223, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Karl Kirbus. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/14/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034825600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LATITUDE 38 FLIES, 3150 18TH ST. #223, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Karl Kirbus & Alexander Stotler McHuron. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/14/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034837400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VALENCIA DENTAL CENTER, 3532 20TH ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Juan F. Luque Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/18/13.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2013 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT NOTICE TO PROPOSERS EXTENSION OF TIME FOR RECEIPT OF PROPOSALS NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that sealed Proposals will be received until the hour of 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at the District Secretary's Office, 23rd Floor, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California 94612 (mailing address: P.O. Box 12688, Oakland, California 94604-2688) for the Procurement of eBART Vehicles, Request for Proposals (“RFP”) No. 04SF-140. Such Proposals will thereafter be accepted or rejected by the District. The Proposers are responsible to ensure their Proposals are received at the time and location specified. This procurement will be based on competitive negotiation procedures as provided in California Public Contract Code Section 20229.1. Dated at Oakland, California, this 11th day of January 2013. /s/ Jacqueline R. Edwards for Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 1/24/13 • CNS-2432515# BAY AREA REPORTER

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Out &About

O&A

The

Be afraid: Noir City 11 Vol. 43 • No. 04 • January 24-30, 2013

www.ebar.com/arts

by Tavo Amador

S Milk confidential

Aaron Wimmer, David Bicha, and Tierra Allen share a scene with images of Harvey Milk in Dear Harvey, Patricia Loughrey’s collection of reminiscences about the slain San Francisco supervisor.

by Richard Dodds

t was 2007, and with the 30th anniversary of Harvey Milk’s assassination approaching, the artistic director of San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre thought the date should be commemorated. Dan Kirsch turned to Patricia Loughrey, a playwright and colleague, to create a new piece that the veteran LGBT theater would unveil, and that would return one small spotlight to the Milk legacy. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, years of talk about a Milk biopic were finally turning to reality, and by the time Loughrey had completed an early draft of her play, the movie Milk was already on screens across the country. Loughrey, “restless” that her play might duplicate what the movie had to say, bought a ticket to Milk that led her to create a very different work from that early draft. “I feel the play and the movie as sort of

Lois Tema

companion pieces, and it was very helpful for me to see the movie and to See page 15 >>

an Francisco’s winter weather is the perfect backdrop for Eddie Muller’s 11th annual Noir City film festival at the Castro Theatre, running Jan. 25-Feb. 3. Opening night features the must-be-seen-to-be-believed Gun Crazy (1950), originally titled Deadly Is the Female. Barton Tare (gay John Dall) likes guns, but discovers he’s an amateur after falling for sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr (an unforgettable Peggy Cummins). She takes him on a violent, sexually charged rampage. With Russ Tamblyn, then 16, playing the young Dall. Written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, but officially credited to Millard Kaufman. Joseph L. Lewis directed. Muller will interview Cummins onstage following the showing. (Fri., 1/25, pre-show entertainment 7 p.m., screens 8 p.m.) In Curse of the Demon (1957), American psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrews) goes to London to expose phony cult leader Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). Karswell’s hospitality makes him question his beliefs. Nervy schoolteacher Joanna Harrington (Cummins) thinks Karswell is responsible for her father’s death. She’s determined to help Holden. Directed by Jacques Tourner. Tough ex-con Stanley Baker hopes to reclaim his life as one of the competitive Helldrivers (1957), but a death foils his plans. Cummins is the knowing, flirtatious secretary. With a young Sean Connery, pre-Man from U.N.C.L.E David McCallum, Gordon Jackson (Hudson on the original Upstairs, Downstairs), Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner), Jill Ireland (later Mrs. Charles Bronson) and Herbert Lom. Directed by the blacklisted Cy Endfield.

he new year’s side of the San Francisco Symphony’s 2012-13 season is moving right along with ambitious concert productions and elegant evenings featuring superstar guest artists. Soprano Renée Fleming, at the peak of her lustrous international career, appeared at Davies Symphony Hall early in January singing songs of Debussy and Canteloube. The big news of the performance was the world premiere of English composer Robin Holloway’s orchestration of Debussy’s C’est L’extase (Settings of Paul Verlaine). An SFS commission, it stemmed from Holloway’s proven ability to idiomatically flesh out Debussy’s piano scoring (2004’s En blanc et noir, an orchestration of a Debussy work for two pianos, was performed by the Orchestra on tour in the US and Europe). The newest enhancement proved a beautiful addition to the repertoire, and a special gift for La Fleming to present to her fans. Whenever I see the glamorous diva on TV, video, or at the San Francisco Opera and DSH, I am reminded of Kiri Te Kanawa, another big star with a similar voice and personality. Both shine greatest in the Straussian roles, but also make a meal of the gorgeous Canteloube pieces taken from his Chants d’Auvergne. Both look

Soprano Renée Fleming.

Impressionist fare by Philip Campbell

Decca/Andrew Eccles

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

(Sat., 1/26, matinee) Try and Get Me! (1951) was inspired by a 1934 San Jose kidnapping. Ex-GI Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) has little money but a family to support. Slick Jerry Slocum (sexy Lloyd Bridges, father of Jeff and Beau) tempts him with a lucrative scheme. Things get complicated when they hold a rich man’s son hostage. With Richard Carlson. Directed by Endfield. Originally released as The Sound of Fury. Fully See page 22 >>

marvelous in couture gowns, but most importantly each singer possesses that creaminess of tone with an exquisitely clear edge that seems to typify the most successful lyric sopranos. Fleming’s appearance was framed by conductor and SFS Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas by two big Debussy works: the ballet Jeux from late in the composer’s career (1912), and his evergreen masterpiece of 1905, La Mer. MTT’s sinewy approach to the great Impressionist suits me fine, and he elicited powerful, sensuous response from the orchestra. The more abstract Jeux benefited greatly, and it was refreshing to hear La Mer sound like the majestic sea in all of its awesome power. Holloway was on hand to take a bow, and he returned to Davies last week for the high-striving, semistaged performances of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt that featured a significant portion of one of his own scores as incidental music. Describing this multi-media concoction might be as confusing as the actual experience, but it is worth the attempt, as the intentions and much of the execution were quite excellent, at times meaningful and engaging. See page 14 >>

<< Out There

14 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

Jazz comes to Franklin & Fell by Roberto Friedman

rts appreciation is Out There’s religion, and the concert hall is our synagogue. So the opening this week of the SFJazz Center in Hayes Valley was righteous cause for spiritual celebration. The Center is the first free-standing institution built for jazz education and performance in the U.S., and its concert hall is a veritable jewel-box, perfect for communing with jazz, our national artform. OT was in the house for the press opening. First came a panel of SFJazz executive artistic director Randall Kline, architect Mark Cavagnero, acoustician Sam Berkow, theatre designer Len Auerbach, contractor Ed Conlon, Latin percussionist John Santos, and chef Charles Phan, who will run the café. Then Santos and his band played “All the Things You Are,” and pressers were invited to move around the auditorium to

test out the acoustics. OT found a vantage point where we could look down at the pianist’s hands as he played, quite the catbird seat. Kline said one goal for the room was to offer “the focus of a concert hall, and the informality of a club,” and there’s clear promise of that here. Santos, one of SFJazz’s resident artistic directors, referred to the room’s “spiritual connection,” pointing out the music’s roots in church and gospel, and predicted, “There’s going to be a lot of crying moments in this room, I can tell already.” The building’s large amount of glass brings the surrounding neighborhood into the concert space, and vice versa. Kline said the design was going for “welcome, warmth and community,” and architect Cavagnero referenced Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple as a model. Count us in as part of the congregation, already looking forward to performances by lesbian jazz pianist Patricia Bar-

ber (3/3), resident artistic directors Brad Mehldau (4/25-28) and Jason Moran (5/2-5). Whet your appetite at www.sfjazz.org.

Movie magic

British movie star Minnie Driver was special guest in the house when the Mostly British Film Festival screened its opening-night attraction Hunky Dory at the Vogue Theatre in San Francisco last Thursday. In the film, she plays a drama teacher at an English working-class school who stages a student production of The Tempest complete with musical interludes. The numbers included lots of early David Bowie (“Life on Mars,” “The Man Who Sold the World”), the schoolboys were adorable, and the sold-out audience was enthusiastic. Opening night benefited the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, helping to preserve neighborhood SF cinemas like the Vogue and the Balboa. More power to them!

Rick Gerharter

Jazz musician John Santos and his band perform during a press preview in the Robert N. Miner Auditorium at the SFJazz Center.

Femi forever

Our big cultural week wrapped up last Saturday night at the Fillmore, where we went to see Nigerian pop musician Femi Kuti with his big band the Positive Force perform from their new album, No Place for My Dream. Kuti and co. are plumbing the essence of Afrobeat, the music pioneered by Femi’s legendary father Fela Kuti in the late 1960s. Femi played a key role in celebrating the recent opening of the Kalakuta Museum, which honors his father and his music in Lagos, and was instrumental in bringing the hit Broadway show Fela! there. At the Fillmore, Kuti was fierce on vocals, tenor and soprano sax, and his band’s energy never flagged under the Afrobeat sun. Live music is our salvation, amen.

Sunset laws

Sunset Boulevard is being shown as part of producer Eddie Muller’s

Impressionist fare

From page 13

Ibsen’s play about title character Peer Gynt is an epic, combining realistic, folk, mystical and philosophical elements to describe a selfish life of reckless adventure that barrels along without care. Does he sound like a lot

Rick Gerharter

Laura Fraenza checks out the blue-and-white tile “Jazz and the City” mural by Sandow Birk and Elyse Pignolet at the SFJazz Center.

Noir City 11 at the Castro Theatre this week. It may interest you to know that director Billy Wilder first discussed the iconic part of Norma Desmond with Mae West. West had not made a movie since 1943, and it had not done well at the box office. She was 57 or 58 when Sunset was made, and she declined, saying, “No one would believe me as a has-

been.” West also rejected the idea of having to keep a young lover. As far as she was concerned, she was more than desirable enough. Mary Pickford also turned the part down, feeling it focused too much on the young man. Norma Shearer also passed. Luckily, Gloria Swanson accepted the role, and the rest was film history.t

of guys we know (or women of the Ayn Rand persuasion)? The women in Peer’s life ultimately save his sorry butt from an anonymous end. While the only bad girl among them, the daughter of the Troll King, gets much to do plotwise, Peer’s mother and patient standby girl Solveig anchor the tale with warmth and humanity. MTT has a confessed fascination with the story, and his attempt to make a cogent two-hour show out of a sprawling four-hour pageant underlines his determination to bring audiences onboard. Inevitably, his vision could not be realized without a lot more rehearsal, editing and re-direction, but given the time allowed, the results were pretty amazing. Moody projections by video designer Adam Larsen provided a visual narrative, helped by lighting designer and associate production designer Cameron Jaye Mock. Their contributions to dramaturg Michael Paller’s adaptation and head honcho James Darrah’s direction and production design made the best case for a presentation that featured enough incidental music to beg the question, “Why was it necessary to do this semi-staged?” The music ostensibly gave an impetus to bring the extravaganza into DSH in the first place. The truncated script (in a bald English translation) was served well enough by an attractive cast of actors, but ironically it was the singing actress portraying Solveig (brighttoned and sweet Joelle Harvey) who made the strongest impression. Handsome young Ben Huber in the title role took the show to PG-13 level when he was stripped of his shirt in the hall of the mountain king, and he was believable in his early scenes. The story requires Peer to age and awaken

to the confusion of his wasted life, and Huber just didn’t have the necessary range. We felt for him, but only in theory. It was possible to feel more for Rose Portillo as Peer’s loyal (there’s another kind?) mother Ase. She also didn’t sing, but her ability to combine a certain humor with pathos, despite the obviousness of the text, made her characterization emotionally touching. Peabody Southwell as the Woman in Green (or Troll King’s daughter) in her scenes of seductive trickery, and Jesse Merlin as both her father and Solveig’s were as convincing as possible under the circumstances. Still, we couldn’t help longing for the next orchestral sequence to appear, then wishing (with one notable exception) it would last longer when it did. So why not just line everybody up at lecterns and do a more conventional concert performance of a difficult play? Well, we would have had to forego the enjoyable stretch of music, illuminated by a wonderful light show, which took over a long portion of the second half. Holloway’s Ocean Voyage was probably most in keeping with MTT’s new approach to the work, and Alfred Schnittke’s marvelous pieces used to describe the mysterious Boyg (don’t ask) and as a prologue also needed the visual help. Edvard Grieg’s beloved incidental music needed no such help, and one could feel the audience breathing better whenever it was played. We won’t fault anyone for making the grand attempt. If this were an out-of-town tryout or even a shaky opening night, we would still praise the maestro and his committed crew for their fitfully successful creation of a new work of art illuminating an old one.t

Film >>

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Senior moments by David Lamble

espite being exposed to more than my fair share of movies earnestly competing for the dubious distinction of “tearjerker,” last night at the Clay was the first time I’ve witnessed someone actually sobbing uncontrollably after the lights came up. Even more remarkable is that the film prompting this heartfelt response was Amour, a classically inspired meditation on the last days of a 60-year relationship from an artist I’ve been tempted to label a “cinema terrorist,” Austrianborn director Michael Haneke. An impeccably gifted craftsman, the 70-year-old prefers to work at least half his time in France, specializing in chillingly detailed scenarios that seek to rebut the Hollywood film template. In arguably the most artistically realized of his films, 2001’s The Piano Teacher, Isabelle Huppert gave Haneke a brave career-topping turn as a middle-aged woman trapped between an unhealthy bond with a psychologically unbalanced mother and her own S/M sexual impulses towards an assortment of men, including her own wildly attractive star pupil. On the other end of the Haneke canon, his Funny Games (filmed both in Austria and in an American shot-for-shot remake) is a repugnantly manipulative “home invasion” melodrama that functions as a kind of snuff film for middle-class values. An idealized family is kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a pair of philosophical goons who trample across the “fourth wall” to make sure we get the full measure of their contempt. Is it a resume that makes Haneke the perfect candidate to depict a devoted husband keeping a promise to his stroke-afflicted wife that she’ll be allowed to die at home with dignity? Amour opens as the couple Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are attending a piano recital by one of Anne’s prized pupils, Alexandre (Alexandre Tharaud). Thrilled by the evening, the couple is shocked to discover their elegant Parisian flat has been burglarized. Unbeknownst to them, this will be their last tranquil moment before tragedy strikes. Haneke has so exhaustively researched and staged Anne’s life-

Dear Harvey

From page 13

know what I could add to what was already being shared,” Loughrey said by phone recently. The result, Dear Harvey, had its debut at the Diversionary Theatre in 2009, and it has been staged in about a dozen other cities since then. San Francisco will finally be added to that list when New Conservatory Theatre Center’s production opens on Jan. 25. Loughrey, now a Long Beach resident, built the play around interviews with Milk’s contemporaries and through Milk’s own words. But this is an ensemble piece with a cast of six in director Allen Sawyer’s NCTC production, with each performer playing multiple roles. The stage notes offer directors a certain amount of leeway, but they specifically state that no single actor should be assigned all of Milk’s dialogue. “When we decided that I would interview people as the basis of the play,” Loughrey said, “I was living in San Diego, and didn’t have any sense of access to people who had See page 16 >>

threatening incident, a blockage of the carotid artery that surgery fails to repair, that Amour could qualify for an AARP seminar in late-life disabilities. The couple is sitting through their typical dull breakfast routine when Anne suddenly experiences a catatonic moment. Georges attempts to summon help, but is drawn back into the kitchen when Anne breaks out of her trance to shut off the water in the sink without the slightest memory of the missing moments from their now-former lives. Haneke shows Georges’ slowly dawning horror that the rituals of their once-serene retirement have irrevocably vanished. It’s a portrait of devotion from a spouse with rough edges. Gradually their book- and concert-centered lives are taken over by doctor visits, motorized wheelchairs, hospital beds, dignity-robbing bathroom episodes, and a slowly simmering emotional guerrilla war with their grown daughter Eva (Huppert) and her British husband Geoff (a rare screen cameo from operatic baritone William Shimell). The husband’s unwelcome visit prompts one of Anne’s best lines, about “the English sense of humor being tolerable only in small doses.” The fretful daughter represents both a tragic break between Eva and Georges over the conditions of Anne’s care, and one of the rare moments of familial warmth to grace a Haneke film, as Eva, late in the story, gives her stubborn dad a long-overdue salute. “When I came in earlier, I remembered as a child listening to you two making love. I felt you really loved each other, and we would always be together.” Haneke’s rigorously unsentimental take on the most wrenchingly intimate human ties pays huge dividends as we witness a humane and non-didactic philosophical exchange between Georges and Anne over the rituals of her last days. As Georges clings to the empty solace of hospice care, Anne dismisses his arguments out of hand, including the obvious, “But what if it was me instead?” The truly harrow-

Darius Khondji, Films du Losange, Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

Jean-Louis Trintignant as Georges and Emmanuelle Riva as Anne in Amour.

ing third act of Amour – the beats that probably drove the stranger near me to crack open emotionally – come as Anne falls into a helpless descent into excruciating pain, punctuated by a humiliating reversion to an almost infantile state where she can only summon the universal sound for mother. Haneke has said that he wouldn’t have undertaken this sad journey without his age-appropriate leads. European cinema buffs will never shake the image of Jean-Louis Trintignant as the closeted queer political henchman in Bertolucci’s monumental autopsy of Italian Fascism The Conformist. Nor is it easy to forget Emmanuelle Riva as the disgraced young French woman who rediscovers the meaning of love in the arms of a Japanese architect in Alain Resnais’ poetically brutal Hiroshima Mon Amour. There is something about the vast body of his screen roles and her achingly brief screen career that makes them a good match to portray this couple born to be joined at the hip. It’s as if Haneke had somehow stumbled across two intuitively right 80something ingénues.t

<< Books

16 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

Outward appearances by Jim Piechota

Born This Way by Paul Vitagliano; Quirk Books, $14.95

aul Vitagliano, a Los Angeles club disc jockey, has produced Born This Way, an entertaining and quite campy collection of childhood pictures, memories, and short essays assembled from his blog, www.bornthiswayblog. com. Drawing inspiration from Dan Savage’s It Gets Better campaign and originally intending to highlight famous LGBTQ people, he ended up posting an open call for entries and collecting hundreds of pre-teen photographs and stories, and a book project magically came to life. Six decades are represented that cover a wide swath of gay and lesbian youth, from London to Mexico City, with several featuring prominent members of our community, in Vitagliano’s words, “to help inspire today’s gay youth to

strive for their own greatness.” The book has some flaws, but nothing to crush its honorable intent. There are no page numbers, so referring to openly gay U.S. Congressman Barney Frank on page 8, or celebrity blogger Perez Hilton on page 92, helps little without reference-markers. Also, notation identifying who these little boys and girls actually are would make the book connect more to its audience. Without knowing what Erasure’s Andy Bell looked like at five, or how Village Voice columnist Michael Musto dressed at 9, readers have no clue who many of the personalities are. But perhaps that’s precisely the point. Famous name or not, we’re all the same on the inside. We all started somewhere, and as gays and lesbians, possibly our future selves were already foretold in the photographs and early stories of our youth, etched into embarrassing family scrapbooks that we’d prefer stay in the attic. Names and distinctions as adults matter little when it comes to sharing delicate

Dear Harvey

From page 15

known Harvey. I put up a flyer at the gay community center in San Diego, asking if anyone had memories of how Harvey had impacted their lives and wanted to share them for a play. I got just one phone call, but it ended up opening a series of doors that would let me write the play.” That phone call was from Nicole Murray-Ramirez, currently a San Diego human rights commissioner, who was active in the Imperial Court System during the years of Milk’s ascendency to public office. MurrayRamirez is featured in the play, and helped Loughrey connect with

aspects of ourselves as children. These pictures, as incriminating, hilarious, and touching as they are, offer a wonderful glimpse into the carefree ways of children; nothing blankets our effeminate gestures, our overtly masculine proclivities, or our silent knowingness that we are different. Because we are so young, we have the singular freedom not to care about it. As little kids, we don’t have any need to hide how we feel inside. Vitagliano’s assembled photographs demonstrate this in spades. By way of silly costumes and precarious placements, these kids are frozen in time, memorialized as heroes in their own right. Popular drag performer Miss Coco Peru (Clinton Leupp) is captured in a photo taken right after his Uncle Adam mistook him for a “lovely young lady” dressed in a matching blue terry-cloth tank top and shorts; multi-award-winning songwriter Marc Shaiman’s picture of himself in the same girlish pose as his mother is cute Stuart Milk, Harvey’s gay nephew who founded the Harvey Milk Foundation. “Speaking with Stuart broadened my sense of what the play could do, because he shared stories from the family, and I started seeing the play as both a remembrance and a way to bring our history to young people and the public, because it isn’t carried in the history books,” said Loughrey, who has been active in LGBT causes for years. Loughrey’s basic criteria for identifying the subjects she would interview were “people who knew him or were affected by him and their lives were changed because of him.” In addition to Murray-Ramirez,

and silly, yet u n re ve a l i n g of the talent bubbling just beneath the surface; and LA drag personas Jackie Beat and Raja Gemini demonstrate style and attitude all their own, even at ages eight and seven. With photographs that offer slices of life from a very different era and anecdotal commentary that is often as telling, Vitagliano’s scrapbook project offers the kind of entertainment that sneaks up on the reader and tugs at that place in

Playwright Patricia Loughrey wrote Dear Harvey to help commemorate the 30th anniversary of Harvey Milk’s assassination.

those represented on stage include Tom Ammiano, Jackie Grover, Robin Tyler, Cleve Jones, Anne Kronenberg, John Laird, Christine Kehoe, Mary Stockton, Dottie Wine, Allan Pettit, and Daniel Nicoletta. Photographer Nicoletta worked at Milk’s camera story in the Castro and chronicled on film Milk’s path from community organizer to San Francisco’s first openly gay supervisor. His photos have been licensed for use in productions of Dear Harvey. The Bay Area Reporter is also part of the story, after Loughrey received permission to quote from the columns Milk wrote for the newspaper. The score by Thomas Hodges is provided, and the composer becomes part of the story. “Thomas Hodges was a student

the heart where our inner kid still lives. He writes, “We must share our stories and pay it forward for future generations.”t

in one of my playwriting classes at San Diego State, and was a young gay man who came of age at a time when it seemed he was completely entitled to it,” Loughrey said. “And during that time he experienced a hate crime, and he was shaken to the core. I had mentioned I was working on this project, and I knew he was a composer and needed an outlet to learn about his own history. Tom appeared in several productions, getting up from the piano and reading from a letter he wrote, and the letter is still in the play. In that moment, the play shifts from past tense to present tense.” At early performances, the audience was often invited to stay for a discussion, and, Loughrey said, “It almost became like an extension of the play. Invariably, there was one person who had never heard of Harvey Milk, and invariably there was one person who actually knew Harvey.” Loughrey will be at the matinee performance on Feb. 17 at NCTC to participate in a talkback with the audience. That kind of audience involvement is what helps set up Dear Harvey as a different experience from the film Milk. “It’s not that I have some noble character that I didn’t feel in any way competitive with the movie, which of course reaches a far broader audience,” Loughrey said. “It’s just that Harvey was so generous that you feel like everybody should be telling his story. The play gives the audience a chance to feel like they are sitting in a room with a bunch of people who knew and loved Harvey, and it’s almost like he’s there in the room, too.”t

Lois Tema

The cast of Dear Harvey gather as part of a vigil for Harvey Milk in the play Dear Harvey at New Conservatory Theatre Center.

Theatre>>

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 17

Anatomy of a face-slap by Richard Dodds

he play opens with a slap in the face. Or more precisely, a “fwap” in the face. That’s the sound made when a hand crosses a cheek in a comic-book world. As the slow-motion scene evolves with our hero cuffing his former girlfriend, a large image is projected behind them with a pen-and-ink panel of the moment accompanied with an illustrated “fwap” as a sound effect to be read. While the television series Batman gave heightened visibility to all the “pows,” “klonks,” and “ooooffs” in numerous fight scenes, such pictorially exaggerated exclamations had been a comics staple for decades. But to say that the new play Manic Pixie Dream Girl is set in a comic-book realm would be an insult to the protagonist whose artistic endeavors now include the culturally superior genre known as graphic novels. Katie May’s play was commissioned and developed by PlayGround, which is a sponsor of the independent production now in residence at ACT’s Costume Shop performance space. While too often the play just misses clicking with its sardonic wannabe-hipster repartee – you can actually hear the spaces where the laughs should fall – the overall feel of the piece is a quirky amiability freshened by the graphic-novel trimmings. This is the story of Lee Tallman, a struggling visual artist whose work (and mind) overlaps into the world of graphic novels. At the start of the play, he is without money, inspiration, or girlfriend. To ease concerns that he may be domestically abusive, inasmuch as the play opens with his slow-mo “fwap” to his ex’s face, his own horror at his

Chesca Rueda

The hero of Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Joshua Roberts) tries to hold onto the enigmatic Lilly (Lyndsy Kail) in Katie May’s new play at ACT’s Costume Shop.

outburst of violence leads us into a flashback to show how such a thing could have happened. We see how the content-in-agarret Tallman grows apart of the upwardly mobile Jackie, who lands a corporate job and acquires a new square-jawed boyfriend with a backslapping bonhomie that infuriates the dedicatedly scruffy Tallman. Their divide may be great, but their arguments are explorations in minutiae. “Alex Trebek is a slimy bastard,” Tallman hurls at Jackie in an insult to the host of her favorite TV game show. “None of our dishes match,” Jackie retorts in criticism of their boho stasis. While Tallman is drowning his sorrows in a Guinness breakfast at the local pub, a mysterious woman enters who tries to pay for her drink with hundreds of Starburst candy wrappers. Tallman picks up

the tab, as well as the girl, though what transpires is far from a onenight-stand. Though without speech and with a flighty approach to life, Lilly becomes Tallman’s livein muse. But to Tallman’s dapper friend Porter, Lilly is quite simply Tallman’s manic pixie dream girl. For those of us who didn’t have a chance to check out Wikipedia first, Porter quickly defines “manic pixie dream girl” as a term coined by film critic Nathan Rabin as “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” And yes, that is more or less what transpires in MPDG. Working with Katie May’s script, director Jon Tracy has woven in various stylized sounds and movements that quote from Quentin Tarantino quoting from martialarts films. Micah Steiglitz’s projections can be amusing, but also feel like opportunities lost to more cleverly rendered and integrated components of the production. The cast is universally agreeable, with Joshua Roberts as the slacker Tallman, Lyndsy Kail as the enigmatic Lilly, Liz Anderson as Tallman’s truculent ex-girlfriend, Lucas Hatton as the ex’s new beau, and Michael Barrett Austin as Tallman’s confidante. Manic Pixie Dream Girl is 80 minutes of mild fun with occasional dollops of existential thoughtfulness. In all, it’s a little more zlonk than zowie.t Manic Pixie Dream Girl will run at the ACT Costume Shop through Feb. 10. Tickets are $25-$35. Call 799-8350 or go to www.manicpixiedreamgirl.org.

ebar.com

<< Out&About

18 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

Show/Off

Fri 25 Alfred Hitchcock Films @ Pacific Film Archive Screening of the major works of the master of cinematic suspense. Tonight, Rear Window (7pm). Jan 30, North by Northwest (7pm). Other films thru April 24. $5.50$13.50. UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-1124. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Anything Goes @ Golden Gate Theatre The three Tony Award-winning revival of the classic nautical musical comedy, with songs by Cole Porter, stars Rachel York and a lively cast. $60-$200. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Feb 3. 1 Taylor St. at Market. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com/online/anythinggoes

Lavendaring

Dear Harvey @ New Conservatory Theatre

by Jim Provenzano

ay back in the Oscar Wilde era, gay gentlemen were known to wear articles of clothing with lavender colors, one of many forms of cruise code forced upon us in repressive eras. Nowadays, fops in fuchsia can parade anywhere, but still risk chastisement, at least from fashion critics. Defy the status quo and flash some purple reign as arts events in various media hint, exclaim or support queeriocity.

Patricia Loughrey’s play recounts the life of the groundbreaking gay activist and politician, based on dozens of interviews of friends and those inspired by Harvey Milk; with music by Thomas Hodges. $18-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Feb 24. 25 Van Ness Ave at Market, lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Donnell Rawlings @ Live at the Rrazz Actor-comedian ( The Wire, The Chappell Show ) performs his Ashy to Classy standup act. $27.50. 9pm. Also Jan 26, 9pm. Jan 27, 7pm. 1000 Van Ness Ave. (800) 380-3095. www.liveattherrazz.com

Film Noir Festival @ Castro Theatre Sat 26: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof @ Buriel Clay Theatre

Mon 28: Erich Bergen @ Live at The Rrazz

Gay playwright pens drama about allegedly closeted former athlete. Hmm. Manti Te’o, wanna go into acting? While he…figures things out, the African-American Shakespeare Company performs Tennessee Williams’ classic play of an injured drunk Southern heir and his fiesty wife, trapped in a mansion for the birthday celebration of the family patriarch. $10-$35. Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Feb 17. 762 Fulton St at Webster. (800) 838-3006. www.african-americanshakes.org

Nope, he’s not gay, but his suit is certainly festive. The star of the touring production of Anything Goes (currently at the Golden Gate Theatre) performs his solo show of songs and comedy. $25-$40. 8pm. 1000 Van Ness Ave. (800) 380-3095. www.liveattherrazz.com

Sat 26: Show/Off @ Box Factory Attend a live studio taping of the drag/ variety show, with Jada D’Angelo, Mama Dora, Mutha Chucka, Ferosha Titties, Duplicity Dilemma, Tweaka Turner, Lillipop Delux, Hepcat, Keith Lawrence, Maria Konner, and others. Pre-show comedy with Andrew Roberts, 9pm. Taping 10pm. $5. 865 Florida St. www.underthegoldengate.com

Sun 27: Yip Harburg Tribute @ Jewish Community Center The lyricist and human rights activist, blacklisted in the 1950s McCarthy era, wasn’t gay, but he wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, including “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” so that should get him posthumous honorary Friend of Dorothy status, doncha think? Harburg is given a tribute with film clips of performances by Groucho Marx, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Barbara Cook and others, plus a slideshow and video interview clips; part of the Berkeley Jewish Music Festival, $10-$15. 2pm-4pm. 1414 Walnut St., Berkeley. (800) 838-3006. www.jewishmusicfestival.org

Thu 24 4000 Miles @ American Conservatory Theatre A.C.T. presents Amy Herzog’s Obie Awardwinning comic drama about growing up and growing old; when a 19-year-old visits his grandmother after a cross-country cycling trip, political and personal sparks fly. $30-$125. Tue 7pm. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Feb 10. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

California Impressions @ ArtHaus Gallery Group exhibit of California landscape paintings and photographs. Exhibit thru Mar. 30. 411 Brannan St. at 3rd. 977-0223. www.arthaus-sf.com

Clint Holmes @ Live at the Rrazz Veteran Vegas singer performs a musical

Tue 29: Book Club @ Magnet The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. So discuss Oscar Wilde’s The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray at the gay men’s monthly book club (4th Tuesdays; 15% off the topic book at Books Inc.) Free. 7:30pm. 4122 18th St. at Castro. www.MagnetSF.org

Tue 29: Hella Gay Comedy @ Rebel How I Came Out shares comedic and touching monologues with performers, comics and queens like Landa Lakes (photo), Mark Yanez, Kate Willett, Rachel Gill and Justin Lucas. Charlie Ballard hosts, so you know it’ll be a hoot. $10. 21+. 8pm. 1760 Market St. 431-4202. www.charlieballard.com

p tribute to Cole Porter and Paul Simon. $35-$45. 8pm. Also Jan 25 & 26 at 7pm. Jan 27, 5pm. 1000 Van Ness Ave. (800) 380-3095. www.liveattherrazz.com

Ian Harvie @ The Punch Line Transgender stand-up comic does his act at the popular club. $15-$20. 8pm. 444 Battery St. at Clay. 281-9242. www.punchlinecomedyclub.com

Night of the Shorts IV: Riffizens on Patrol @ Castro Theatre Members of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew are joined by other witty actor/voiceover talents (including Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall and Kristen Schall of 30 Rock and Bob’s Burgers ) in a hilarious night of poking fun at a collection of awful vintage short films. Presented by SF Sketchfest. $30. 8pm. 429 Castro St. www.sfsketchfest.com

11th annual Noir City Festival, with dozens of classic, obscure and noir-y films screened, including Gun Crazy and Sunset Boulevard. Various prices from single tickets ($12) to a full pass and gala opening ($120). Thru Feb 3. 429 Castro St. www.noircity.com

Hedwig and the Angry Inch @ Boxcar Theatre Thu 31: Scott Capurro @ Café DuNord Enjoy a little gay shame as the comic with a twisted wit performs his new show, Sad Fucking Queer. $16. 21+. 8pm. 2160 Market St. 861-5016. www.cafedunord.com

Thu 31: United in Anger: A History of ACT UP @ GLBT History Museum Did you know that some cofounding members of ACT UP were also in a gay protest group called The Lavender Menace? Well, now you do. For more footage to compliment the other ACT UP documentary, How To Survive a Plague, see Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman’s documentary about the New York City birth of the AIDS activist movement, with fascinating footage of its pivotal protests, commentary by surviving veterans. $5 (free for members). 7pm-9pm. 4127 18th st. at Castro. 621-1107. www.glbthistory.org

Local production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s popular transgender rock operetta, with multiple actor-singers perfoming the lead. $25-$35. Wed-Sat 8pm. Also Sat 5pm. Thru Jan 26. 505 Natoma St. 967-2227. www.boxcartheatre.org

Hippy Icon @ Berkeley Marsh Wavy Gravy performs his informal unpredictable solo show Hippy Icon, Flower Geezer and Temple of Accumulated Error, his stories of Woodstock, meeting Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, and other people and events. $15-$50. Fri 8pm, Sat 5pm, Sun 2pm. Thru Feb 10. 2120 Allston Way at Shattuck. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Jerad Finck @ Red Devil Lounge Folk-rock guitarist-singer performs new music. $18-$20. 9pm. 1695 Polk St. 9211695. www.jeradfinckmusic.com www.reddevillounge.com

Our Practical Heaven @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Anthony Clarvie’s drama about a family facing the decline of their beach home, and the changing nature of generations, family and gender roles. $35-$60. Preview. Opens Jan 31. Tue 7pm. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. 20181 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

Se Llama Cristina @ Magic Theatre Yip Harburg

Comedy Bodega @ Esta Nocha The new weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. This week, Kollin Holz and the hilarious kids from Sylvan Productions hijack Comedy Bodega. 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

Tales of California @ SF Public Library Historian and filmmaker Glenne McElhinney introduces her new documentary and media project which includes webisodes and oral histories of LGBT California life from 1970 to 1982. Free. 6pm. LatinoHispanic Community Room, Main Library, Lower Level. 100 Larkin St. 557-4400. www.sfpl.org

The Witch House @ The Garage Anthony Julius Williams directs a production of Morgan Bassichs’ queer take on the Salem with trials, where some young boys set out to make some money, but wind up involved in a supernatural adventure. $15. 8pm. Also Jan 26 (also 11:30pm) and 27 at 8pm. 715 Bryand St. at 5th. 663-6746. www.715bryant.org

Sat 26 Acid Test @ The Berkeley Marsh Warren David Keith performs Lynne Kaufman’s solo show Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass, a biographical look at a spiritual contemporary of Timothy Leary. $15-$50. Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru Feb 17. 2120 Allston Way at Shattuck. 2823055. www.themarsh.org

Black Power, Flower Power @ Harvey Milk Photo Center Dual exhibit of photos by Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marian Baruch, documenting the 1960s dual social revolutions ( Black Panthers, 1968; Haight-Ashbury, 1967) that began in San Francisco. Thru Mar. 23. 50 Scott St. 554-9522. www.harveymilkphotocenter.org

Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws: Gay San Francisco @ SF Public Library Thomas Alleman’s exhibit of fascinating new large-print photos from San Francisco’s mid-1980s gay community, from the onslaught of AIDS to nightlife and arts celebrations. Exhibit thru Feb 10. Jewitt Gallery, lower level, 100 Larkin St. at Grove. www.allemanphoto.com www.sfpl.org

Girl With a Pearl Earring @ de Young Museum Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis, a new touring exhibit of Dutch Masters paintings, drawing and etchings; Thru June 2. Also, Rudolf Nureyev: A Life in Dance, an exhibit of costumes, photos, videos and ephemera documenting the amazing dancing and choreography of the world-famous gay dancer. Thru Feb 17. Also, Eye Level in Iraq: Photographs by Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson, thru June 16. $10-$20. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. (til 8:45pm Fridays) Thru Dec. 30. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. 750-3600. www.famsf.org

Navigating Queer Pacific Waves @ Galeria de la Raza Group exhibit of new works in various media and collaborating artists who focus on their Pacific Islander roots and explore colonialism and LGBT oppression. Exhibit thru March 2. Tue-Sat 12pm-6pm. 2857 24th St. at Bryant. 826-8009. www.galeriadelaraza.org

Troublemaker @ Berkeley Rep Previews begin for Berkeley Repertory’s production of Dan LeFranc’s commissioned Troublemaker, or The Freakin Kick-A Adventures of Bradley Boatright, about a teenager who sees himself as a protective superhero. $29-$77. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Feb 3. Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2917. www.berkeleyrep.org

Sun 27 Ezra Jack Keats @ Contemp. Jewish Museum

Octavio Solis’ drama, a multi-layered fever dream where a young man and woman wake up in a strange room, and must piece together their past identities and relationship. $20-$55. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2:30pm. Tue 7pm. Thru Feb 17. Fort Mason Center, Bldg. D, 3rd floor. 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org

The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats, an exhibit of original artwork from the popular children’s book author/illustrator. Thru Feb 24. Also, The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League. Other exhibits (California Dreaming and Black Sabbath ) ongoing. Free (members)-$12. Thu-Tue 11am-5pm (Thu 1pm-8pm) 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Woyzeck @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

Magnificent Magnolias @ SF Botanical Garden

Shotgun Players’ production of Robert Wilson’s re-conceived musical revision of Georg Buchner’s stage play, with music and lyrcis by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. $25-$35. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru Jan 27. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-6500.

New seasonal exhibit of colorful floral displays; thru March. Also, beautiful floral drawing exhibit of watercolor works by Ernest Clayton. Thru April. $2-$15. 9am7pm. 9th Avenue at Lincoln Way, Golden Gate Park. 661-1316. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org

www.shotgunplayers.org

Outlook Video @ Channel 29

The Waiting Period @ The Marsh

The LGBT news show covers divorce for same-sex couples, Palm Springs Pride and a 2012 year in review. 5pm. Also streaming online. www.outlookvideo.org

Brian Copeland returns with his popular solo show about chronic depression and his near-suicidal thoughts while awaiting a gun permit. $30-$35. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Thru Jan 26. 1062 Valencia St. at 22nd. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Out&About >>

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

Wed 30 Dot (Tom Schmidt) @ Magnet Exhibit of photos from the photographer’s book, Escort, portraiture of local male sex workers. Proceeds from book sales benefit the St. James Infirmary. Thru Jan. 4122 18th St. www.magnetsf.org

Keiko Matsui @ Live at The Rrazz The smooth New Age/jazz keyboardist performs with her band. $40-$45. 8pm. Thru Feb 2 (various times). 1000 Van Ness Ave. (800) 380-3095. www.liveattherrazz.com

One Night Stand: Creating a Play in a Day @ Century 9 Cinema Cheyenne Jackson ( 30 Rock, Glee ), Jesse Tyler Ferguson ( Modern Family) and Rachel Dratch ( Saturday Night Live ) plus many more actors, writers, directors and composers are featured in an unusual onenight event, where an entire team creates a one-night performance of a Broadway play. Simulcast from NYC’s Gramercy Theatre. $12-$15. 7:30pm. 845 Market St. 538-8422. www.24hourplays.com www.FathomEvents.com

Emilie Autumn. See Thu 31

SF Hiking Club @ Redwood Regional Park Join GLBT hikers for a 9-mile loop hike in Redwood Regional Park and Anthony Chabot Park in the Oakland hills. Bring lunch, water, hat, layers, sturdy boots. Carpool meets 9:15am at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 706-5335. www.sfhiking.com

Stephen Tobolowsky @ Yoshi’s Prolific character actor ( Glee, Heroes, Seinfeld, and 100s of films and TV shows) performs his one-man show, The Tobolowsky Files. $25. 8pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Mon 28 Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm-1:30am. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Play Fair @ GLBT History Museum

Tue 29 The Drag Show @ Various Channels Stu Smith’s weekly LGBT variety show features local talents, and not just drag artistes. Channels 29 & 76 on Comcast; 99 on AT&T and 30 on Astound. www.thedragshow.org

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey’s Ronn Vigh hosts the weekly LGBT and gayfriendly comedy night. One drink or menu item minimum. 9pm. 500 Castro St. at 18th. 431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

Pamela Joy & Paul DeLio @ Live at the Rrazz Jazz and R&B singing duo perform standards and classics. $20. 8pm. 1000 Van Ness Ave. (800) 380-3095. www.liveattherrazz.com

Rock of Ages @ San Jose Center for the Performing Arts Broadway San Jose presents the rock musical comedy about rising and falling stars of ‘80s arena rock, featuring hits by Styx, Nightranger, REO Speedwagon and other bands. $20-$75. Tue-Thu 7:30pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 2pm. Sun 1pm & 6:30pm. Thru Feb. 3. www.broadwaysanjose.com

Play Fair! The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Make Sex Safer, an exhibit of safe sex promotional efforts; thru Feb 6. MonSat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. 621-1107. www.glbthistorymuseum.org

Real Talk @ LGBT Center Free public forum presented by the SF AIDS Foundation and Stop AIDS Project; this time, open relationships and non-monogamy are discussed. 6pm-8pm. 1800 Market St. www.sfaf.org/real-talk

Sexual Wellness Talk @ LGBT Center Dr. Alan Shindel, assistant professor, Dept. of Urology, UC Davis, and his collaborators discuss the results of a series of surveys of sexual dysfunction and wellness in lesbian and gay communities. 7pm-9pm. 1800 Market St. (916)734-4561. www.sfcenter.org

Thu 31 Comedy Bodega @ Esta Nocha The weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. This week, SF Sketchfest at Comedy Bodega featuring Casey Ley, Amy Miller, Jason Downs, Lydia Popvich, Justin Lucas and Shanti Charan. 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. www.comedybodega.com

Emilie Autumn @ The New Parish, Oakland Victorian-glam rock singer and violinist performs her rock operetta Fight Like a Girl. $17. 9pm. 579 18th St. (510) 4447474. www.emilieautumn.com www.thenewparish.com

Faith Encounters Gayness @ Jewish Community Library Perspective on the U.S. and Israel, a talk with Rabbi Steve Greenberg, author of Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, and co-director of Eshel, an LGBT orthodox Jewish organization; also, a screening of the short film V’Ahavta (And Thou Shalt Love). Free. 7pm. 1835 Ellis St. www.awiderbridge.org

Bebe Miller Company

Dance duos Fri 25: Bebe Miller Company @ YBCA Forum

Wed 30: Eric Wagner @ 715 Bryant St.

Veteran choreographer presents A History, a dance (and part installation) examining the ten-year relationship of two of her dancers. $25. 8pm. Also Jan 26. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org

Dancer-choreographer (formerly with San Francisco, Bejart and Bern Ballet companies), performs In a Room Full of Strangers with Daiance Lopes da Silva. $10-$20. 8pm. Also Jan 31. 715 Bryant St. www.715bryant.org

Eric Wagner

Gerard Nicosia @ SF Public Library Beat historian Gerald Nicosia discusses his book One and Only: The Untold Story of On the Road, which tells the story of the beautiful 15-year-old girl who loved both men and taught them how to love each other. A book sale by Readers Books follows the event.  Main Library, Lower Level, Latino-Hispanic Community Meeting Room, 6:30 p.m. 100 Larkin St. at Grove. www.sfpl.org

Sketchfest Nightlife @ Cal. Academy of Sciences SF Sketchfest invades the weekly science and nature museum’s party, with comics Chris Hardwick, Tig Notaro, Greg Proops, Brent Weinbach, Will Franken and others; plus food, cocktails and DJed dancing. $10-$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication. For more bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com

<< Leather

20 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2013

Changes in store

by Scott Brogan

he upcoming Mr. San Francisco Leather Contest, which is the cornerstone of the Leather Alliance’s Leather Alliance Weekend, will feature significant changes both behind the scenes and during the contest. I recently met with Daddy Ray Tilton to discuss the contest and the changes for this year. Tilton is both producer and director of the contest. The Leather Alliance is the producing entity due to their ownership of the title “Mr. San Francisco Leather.” As I understand it, they have no real interest in producing the contest although they provide support. So Tilton stepped up to produce it. The most notable change is the removal of the on-stage fantasy. Since its addition a few years back, the fantasy section has proved to be a bit controversial. Mr. SF Leather’s sole requirement is to compete at IML (International Mr. Leather) in Chicago in May. IML has never featured a fantasy (best to leave that up to the weekend’s parties and in-room fun). The Leather Sir/boy contests feature on-stage fantasies, as does the International Ms. Leather (and feeder contests). This year, Mr. SF Leather returns to holding strictly to the standards of IML. The reason for this is simple: Whoever wins the title will compete at IML. Having an IML-like experience under his belt will help him successfully compete, hopefully bringing home the title. I’m told that the addition of the fantasies was a deterrent keeping some men from competing. For the record, the categories that contestants are judged on are: Pre-judging (offstage)/Street Wear, Physique/Onstage Question, and Leather Image/ Speech. Another big change is the acceptance of independent contestants. Contestants sponsored by leather bars or BDSM/Kink/Leather businesses have always been accepted, but this year, individuals can compete on their own, basically “sponsored by themselves,” if they are “reputable as a leather man.” Considering the drought of real leather bars in the city, this is a welcome change, as the only two “feeder” contests are the Mr. Powerhouse and Mr. Edge contests. The SF Citadel is not sponsoring a contestant this year (as of this writing), and the few leather businesses in the city traditionally have not sponsored anyone on a regular basis. If you want to enter on your own, or be sponsored by a business, please contact Tilton at: dogandpup707@gmail.com, or the Den Daddy Jorge Vieto at downshift@ gmail.com. As of this writing, there is already one confirmed independent contestant. The deadline for all applications is Feb. 11. Contact Tilton or Vieto at the e-mails listed above to get an application, or if you have any questions. Tilton has also initiated a new mentorship program for those interested in volunteering. It works a bit like an apprenticeship. Volunteers assist someone in a position (Den Daddy, judge’s boy, etc.) that they’re interested in taking over in the future. Of course, one-time volunteers (non-mentorship) are always needed and welcome. This year’s emcee duties will be handled by Darren Bondy (Mr. SF Leather 2011) and Lance Holman (Mr. SF Leather 2010). It’s their first time (imagine saying that about them!) emceeing the contest, so let’s give them our support. They’re taking over after Lenny Broberg and Donna Sachet stepped down from their an-

Rich Stadtmiller

Mr. SF Leather 2011 Darren Bondy congratulates Mr. SF Leather 2012 Jesse Vanciel and First Runner-up Brent Ganetta at last year’s contest.

nual emceeing duties last year. The “Broberg Award” debuts this year. It will be given to someone who has significantly contributed to the Mr. SF Leather title. Each year, Lenny Broberg (Mr. SF Leather 1992 & IML 92) and the previous year’s recipients will decide who will be honored. The award will be given out onstage during the contest. R&B/ rock diva Raquella will be on hand to sing the national anthem, perform the opening number with the contestants, and do a 15-minute set during intermission. The Mr. Edge Leather 2013 contest is Feb. 6 at 9 p.m., and the Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2013 contest is Feb. 9 at 9 p.m. If you are interested in entering, drop into the bars and

let them know. The entire weekend events are as follows: Thurs., Feb. 28: SoMa Bar Crawl, 7-8 p.m. Fri., March 1: Contestant Meet & Greet at Mr. S Leather, 5-7 p.m. Queen Cougar Roast/Tribute at The ARC of SF, 8-10 p.m. Sat., March 2: Making the Connection Seminars at the Hotel Whitcomb (time TBA), 33rd Mr. SF Leather Contest at the Hotel Whitcomb. Starts at 8 p.m. Meet the New Mr. SF Leather After-Party at The Powerhouse. Sun., March 3:  48th Annual Community Awards Brunch at Beatbox, Noon-3 p.m. Victory Beer Bust at the SF Eagle, 3-6 p.m. All weekend events, unless otherwise noted, will be held at the Hotel Whitcomb on Market & 8th Sts. For up-to-date information, go to the Mr. SF Leather events page on Facebook.t

Scott Brogan

Mr. SF Leather 2010 Lance Holman will take on emcee duties.

Karrnal >>

January 24-30, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Daddy dearest by John F. Karr

n the just-released Joe Gage Sex Files Vol. #11 – Doctors and Dads 2, director Joe Gage once again has seemingly straight guys slowly tumbling into homosexualities. The movie’s arrived at the same time as Jake Deckard’s Men in the Sand, but where I found that one dynamite, Doctors and Dads 2 is disappointing. The movie depicts heterosexual doctors and dads having sex with their patients and sons, who are sometimes gay. But the frisson, the will he/won’t he tensions of Gage’s earlier movies, are gone. They’ve been waning through a number of Volumes, and now seem totally wanting. It’s hard to divine just what has withered in Gage’s once-golden art of depicting the ways men of label-free sexuality broker mutual sex. It can’t simply be the fake-looking sets undercutting a once-assured verisimilitude. And that monotone underplaying that used to assist non-actors in creating tension – now it just feels like they’re unengaged. And it’s not for lack of prime players, either. This movie has an all-star cast including Andrew Justice, Jake Steel, Jake Deckard, Tommy Deluca, and Matt Sizemore – although you won’t find their names on the box, or unbelievably, in the movie itself, which lacks credits of any kind. Here’s the thing: where Men in the Sand makes every one of its performers better-looking and sexier than we’ve seen before, the usually hot performers of D&D2 come off, if not becalmed, then outright dull. Only Matt Sizemore, a performer I’ve never really warmed to, injects some life into the proceedings. Damn if he doesn’t have some deviltry simmering behind The Mask of Gage. Also present, though mostly attenuated, are a hairless, rosy-cheeked twink who lays his load on Sizemore’s tongue, and a mature doctor whose face has fallen but whose big fatty of a cock rises agelessly. I’d like to go back to Men in the Sand for a bit. I particularly enjoyed the simple way its blackouts arrive, with screen swipes that push a scene out of view. Especially the one that caps a surprising bit of dialogue. It’s not long after lovers Kyle King and Dale Cooper climax their rowdy love-fuck that they nab a passing stranger, David Anthony, for a raunchy threeway. At its conclusion, Anthony says to Coo-

RayDragonMedia

The rosy-cheeked twink and Jake Deckard, in a screen grab from Joe Gage Sex Files Vol. #11 – Doctors and Dads 2.

per, “Thanks for letting me fuck your boyfriend.” The answer he gets is so succinct it doesn’t even include, “You’re welcome.” “Shut the door when you leave” is all Cooper says. Well, that’s letting him know a trick’s just a trick. As Anthony exits, he pauses outside that closed door to casually light a cigarette. And as he saunters offstage right, the scene’s blackout follows right along at his heels. When the lights fade up, we find Anthony in a wooded grove, casually smoking that cigarette, having gone right on to his next trick. These touches – sharp dialogue, continuity, filmic editing – well, you just don’t encounter them often in a sexo. So yay, Jake. He has revivified standard porn scenarios through the security of his actors, their dialogue, the expression of character, and the construction and editing of the film – all the things that should be done by the person who calls himself the director, but usually aren’t. The scenarios of D&D2 haven’t been revivified at all. But I gotta admit to the movie’s moments of

decent dialogue. There are several of those terse exchanges Gage likes. He even risks breaking the stultifying mood he’s so carefully created by asking for a laugh. After son Jake Steel kneels and gets Dad’s cock right up in his face, you can see him giving in to the forbidden urge to suck it. Prying his eyes from the prized piece of meat, he looks upward and intones, “Dad, I gotta do this.” It’s too bad the subsequent blow job, like nearly all the movie’s sex, is neither urgent, naughty nor fun. It’s emotionless, kinda blank. But I nearly laughed as Steel began doing what he’s gotta do, and Dad quietly questioned, “You sure you know what you’re doing, son?” Meaning, of course, does Jake understand the ramifications of father/son sex? My chuckle came from understanding the question as Dad’s inquiry into his son’s skill. Jake could have given a snappy, “What do you think?” But he gives out only a deadpan, “Yeah, Dad.” And that’s the word for Doctors and Dads 2. Deadpan. The movie’s unnamed performers send forth blank stares; its bareboned production houses blandboned sex.t www.RayDragonMedia.com

<< Film

22 2013 22 •• B Bay AYA Area REAR Reporter EPORTER • January 24-30 24-30,, 2013 • January

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

International relations by David Lamble

Don’t look for a Western-style, dialogue-driven plot, except for one nifty exercise in verbal fireworks as Anne (the name of all three of Huppert’s slightly differentiated characters) confronts her older Korean boyfriend Moonsoo (Moon Sungkeun) about why he hates her flirting with the lifeguard. He lights a cigarette in frustration and exclaims, “Why did you talk to him so long?” “You’re talking about the life-

guard?” “I mean you talk to him so long!” “But you’re crazy, you know!” “You’re crazy for a young man!” “Is this a joke?” “You must have a craving for a young body.” “Yes, I have. Don’t you?” “That stupid lifeguard is so attractive to you?” “Yes, he’s very attractive. I love him!” “Don’t patronize me. Just tell me

the truth.” “I want to have sex with him.” “You’re foolish.” “I’m stupid, and you’re so smart!” “Where are you going?” “I’m going to see him, what else? Don’t threaten me, you’re just a Korean man!” This exchange is about as far as In Another Country comes to making the sense we’ve come to demand from sexually-driven dramas. Yet Hong Sang-soo is an art-house star

precisely because he doesn’t give in to conventional expectations. He offers the kind of upside-down plot logic that keeps art-house critics busy assuring you’re getting something for your money. You have to hand it to Huppert, whose astonishing 200+ film career, now into her fifth decade, includes queer favorites like Entre Nous, Ma Mere and 8 Women, as well as such cinema treasures as Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de Torchon and the recently restored studio-destroyer, Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. She is that rare international superstar you’ll enjoy even if her current offering is little better than an introduction to conversational English/Korean. To be honest, such American heavyweights as Susan Sarandon, Melissa Leo, Laura Linney and Patricia Clarkson could have done as well with this meandering, cute, but ultimately punchless art-house fare. For a director with a host of titles that sound intriguing in their English translations (The Day a Pig Fell into the Well, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Woman is the Future of Man), Hong Sang-soo’s recent efforts, including the enigmatically plotted The Day He Arrives, have the feel of an artist skating by on his reputation. This is a filmmaker who could benefit from a major retrospective – a worthy project, perhaps, for the programming wizards at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival.t

welcomes his mail-order bride Helen Chandler (Dracula), but she prefers the charms of his son, Douglass Montgomery. Set on a steamy South Pacific island. In The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), gay director James Whale (Frankenstein) shows what happens when an attorney (Frank Morgan, years before The Wizard of Oz) defends a client accused of murdering his wife, then wonders if he is being cuckolded. With bisexual Walter Pidgeon, Nancy Carroll, Gloria Stuart and Paul Lukas. During the 30s, Pat O’Brien usually played good guys, often opposite James Cagney’s gangsters. In Laugher in Hell (1933), however, he’s convicted of killing his unfaithful wife and her lover, and sentenced to a life of hard labor in prison. With Stuart. These pre-code rarities show how adventurous the studios were before censorship took over. None are available on DVD. (Mon., 1/28) African-American writer Richard Wright plays Bigger Thomas in the rarely seen 1951 adaptation of his landmark 1940 novel, Native Son, a scathing look at racism in America. Thomas is an accidental killer. Filmed in Buenos Aires, which stood in for Chicago, by French director Pierre Chenal and Argentine producer Jaime Prades. No Hollywood studio would touch the explosive story. Clarence Brown’s version of William Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust (1949) features the great Juano Hernandez as a defiant Mississippi African-American unjustly charged with killing a white man. David Brian is the attorney who won’t defend him. Young Claude Jarman, Jr., knows what really happened. With gay Will Geer (decades before The Waltons). (Tues,, 1/29) Edward Dmytryk’s The Sniper (1952) is an early look at a serial killer. With the normally meek Arthur Franz, right-wing actor Adolphe Menjou, noir regular Marie Windsor, and Richard Kiley before Broadway stardom. San Francisco locations include Pacific Heights, North Beach, and an industrial

China Basin. They document the city that once was. A fully restored Experiment in Terror (1962) is also set in Baghdad by the Bay.

FBI agent Glenn Ford tries to save Lee Remick’s sister (Stephanie Powers), being held for ransom by one of the creepiest villains in

movie history (Ross Martin). The sensational climax takes place at then-new Candlestick Park. Blake Edwards directed. (Wed., 1/30)t

cryptic comment from an older Korean woman to her English-speaking French traveling companion, Anne (ageless beauty Isabelle Huppert), may prove useful to decoding In Another Country, a romantic/comic mood-piece from superstar Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo (opening Friday at Landmark’s Opera Plaza Cinemas). “You know, we have a thousand monkeys in our brain chattering all the time.” If you arrive late for this three-part story, those monkeys will be chattering all over your brain and you may never catch up, despite the fact that the actors are mostly trafficking in conversational English. Set in an austerely beautiful beach resort, In Another Country supposedly resulted from a chance encounter between the director and Huppert, who responded to his invitation to star in his next, as-yet unscripted film with a resounding “Oui!” The resulting 89 minutes are both more and less than might have been expected from such a collaboration of titans. Huppert is effortlessly romantic, and this screen sizzle plays well with the director’s customary preoccupation with the loose-cannon horniness and fecklessness of the modern Korean male. Particularly delicious are Huppert’s absurdist encounters with a lanky young lifeguard (Yu Junsang, a naturally daffy delight in the aw-shucks sexy department).

Noir City 11

From page 13

restored by the Film Noir Foundation. Sadistic Lawrence Tierney is The Hoodlum (1951) terrifying his family and everyone else. Grim, but barely an hour long. (Sat., 1/26, evening) Broadway star Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) begins the new year by shooting husband Barney (bisexual Louis Hayward). She confesses to poet William Williams (Richard Basehart), but at the scene of the crime, they discover it’s one year earlier. Will she redeem herself, or is she fated to give a Repeat Performance (1947)? Lots of juicy backstage bitchiness. With Natalie Schaefer, long before Gilligan’s Island. Alfred L. Werker directed. This rarity has also been fully restored by the Film Noir Foundation. Few movies reveal the corrosive effects of fame as powerfully as Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950). Gloria Swanson, once one of the biggest names in silents and early talkies, returned to movies as Norma Desmond, “the greatest star of them all.” Writer Joe Gillis (hunky William Holden), fleeing creditors, finds refuge in her decaying, memory-haunted mansion, where she’s attended by faithful butler Max von Mayerling (Erich von Strohiem). Norma is plotting her return to the screen as Salome. With Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Jack Webb, and as themselves, Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper and Buster Keaton. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actress (Swanson), and Actor (Holden). Wilder, Charles Brackett, and D.M. Marshman, Jr., won for Best Original Screenplay, as did Franz Waxman’s Original Score. The film also won for Best Set Decoration. (Sun., 1/ 27, matinee & evening) William Wyler, one of classic Hollywood’s most acclaimed directors, won three Oscars and earned nine other nominations. He helmed A House Divided (1931). Widower Walter Huston (father of John, grandfather of Angelica)

t ▼

Kino Lorber, Inc.

Yu Junsang and Isabelle Huppert in Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s In Another Country.

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